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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

9—165 



FOOD: ITS RELATION TO HEALTH 
AND DISEASE 



Food: Its Relation to 
Health and Disease 



BY 



EPHRAIM CUTTER 

M.D., Harvard, 1856, and University of Pennsylvania, 1857; 
A.B., 1852, A.M., 1855, Yale; LL.D., 1887, Iowa College 



AND 



JOHN ASHBURTON CUTTER 

M.D., Albany Medical College, 1886; B.Sc, Mass. Agric. College 
and Boston University, 1882 



NEW YORK 
THE GAZETTE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1907 



.'- 






Kay Printing. House 
66-68 centre st. 

NEW YORK 



FBRARY of CONGRESS 
One Cot* Received'. 

MAY 8 190? 

,C 72W 

w COPY A. 



3R£Ss[ 

iveck' J, A 5 J 



Copyrighted 1906 
By J. CLARK SLAY 



This work is dedicated by his son and grandson to the 

memory of 

BENJAMIN CUTTER 
A.M., Harvard — M.D., Harvard and University of 
Pennsylvania 

Born 1804; died 1864. 

"Keen in observation, sound in judgment, prompt in 
action, diligent in study, modest yet self-reliant, with a 
mind of the highest order, possessing extensive and varied 
acquirements, he honored his profession in a practice of 
nearly forty years. As a citizen always reliable, as a Chris- 
tian always consistent, his death carried sorrow to all who 
knew him." 



PREFACE 

This subject was never so widely studied and apparently 

never were there so many peculiar and clashing foodal ideas 

as now. It is hoped that this publication will throw some 

light and increase attention on this most important matter. 

The personal relation of the authors is naturally close ; both 

have, labored seriously on this production; but it can be 

frankly said that the senior could have accomplished the 

result without the aid of the junior, while said junior alone 

could not have produced such a result. That many more 

years of terrestrial activity may be the lot of the senior is 

the hope of the undersigned. 

John Ashburton Cutter. 

New York, February i, 1907. 



CONTENTS 

Prologue i 

Am 3 

Milk 9 

Water 18 

Salt 53 

Beef 56 

Porterhouse Steak 79 

Broiled Chopped Beef 80 

Hamburg Steak 81 

Roast Beef 81 

Corned Beef 81 

Tripe 83 

Dried Beef 83 

Ox-tail 84 

Beef Tongue 84 

Veal 85 

Mutton and Lamb 86 

Eggs 93 

Pork 95 

Sausages 102 

Poultry 102 

Fish 104 

Coffee 114 

Tea 118 

Cocoa or Chocolate 120 

xi 



x11 CONTENTS 

Table Chemical Analyses from "How 

Crops Grow" 124 

Cane Sugar I2 c 

Wheat I2 n 

White Potato 137 

Rice I42 

Rye I4 7 

Barley 149 

Corn — Hominy 152 

Sago 157 

Tapioca 159 

Dates 161 

Apple 167 

Celery , 173 

Oat 177 

Peach 181 

Tomato 186 

Prune — Plum 189 

Lemon 193 

Limes 196 

Orange 196 

Green Pea 197 

Baked Beans 201 

String Beans 209 

Irish Moss 212 

Spinach 216 

Onions 219 

Leeks 223 

Garlic 223 



CONTENTS XJii 

VDISH 

Radish 



Horseradish 2 26 



229 

Lettuce 2 X7 

Mustard 2 ?g 

Dandelion 2 ao 

Parsley 242 

Cress 244 

Okra 244 

Squash 245 

Summer Squash 247 

Pumpkin 247 

Water Melon 249 

Musk Melon 251 

Turnip 251 

Beets 253 

Parsnip 255 

Carrot 257 

Cabbage 259 

Grape 263 

Must 268 

Wine 269 

Cranberry 269 

Cucumber 272 

Cucumber Pickles 275 

Pepper, Black 276 

Pepper, Red 279 

Tabasco Sauce 280 

Raspberry 281 

Strawberry 281 



xiv contents 

Asparagus 282 

Rhubarb 283 

Banana 284 

Pineapple 284 

Spiritual and Mental Kingdom Foods, 

Musics 285 

Alcohol 300 

Fermentation 329 

Changes in Food by Cooking 332 

Amyloid and Protein Groups 336 

Food in Acute Diseases 341 

Foop in Chronic Diseases 344 

Food in Surgical Affections : 360 

The Care of the Aged . . 363 

Uric Acid : Memorandum 369 

Summer Feeding 369 

Epilogue 370 

Bibliography 371 

Index 375 



FOOD: ITS RELATION TO HEALTH 
AND DISEASE 



L 



PROLOGUE 

Foods are any substances or forms of motion, biologically 
received from without, that enter into the tissues and fluids 
of the human body, to become part and pajxel of it and 
normally sustain life. 

They may be divided into organic (those that burn), in- 
organic (those that do not burn), and mental or spiritual. 
Further, there are four kingdoms of food — animal, vege- 
table, mineral and mental. 

Animal foods include beef, mutton, pork, game, fish, 
shell fish (clams, oysters), fowls, eggs and milk. 

Vegetable kingdom foods include all plants, wheat, rye, 
barley, rice, tapioca, sago, potato, corn, hominy, buckwheat, 
dates, prunes, peaches, grapes, sugar, celery, tomatoes, pep- 
per, mustard, tea, coffee, chocolate and their preparations. 
It is not right conventionally to exclude the grains, as grains 
are plants. 

The mineral foods are air (including nitrogen, oxygen, 
ozone), common salt and other salts, and all waters, includ- 
ing their salts in solution ; the mineral elements in the human 
body as lime, potash, soda, magnesia, fluorine, sulphur, iron, 
chlorine are furnished by the three kingdoms just named. 

Mental kingdom foods are music, speech, ideas, knowl- 
edge, arithmetic, grammar, literature. Some may object 
to this division, but all are foods, other things being equal, 
that fill the needs of the body and mind. So-called foods 
that take away mind and will, that craze and make mad like 



2 PROLOGUE 

alcohol, are spirituous, but not spiritual and are not foods 

in the common acceptation of the term. 

Other Divisions of Food 

Good or bad: A good food may be bad from the way it 
is selected, kept, cooked or used. It may be wrongly chosen, 
kept too long, cooked badly and eaten too much of at a time. 

The condition of the eaters: As the spiritual, distin- 
guishing great religious sects and making castes, as among 
the Hindoos. See also the Old Testament. Also whether 
eaters are well or ill ; have an appetite or not ; whether they 
eat to live or live to eat; whether they are infants, youths 
or aged, or can select their food or not— as shipwrecked 
sailors, in desert places, that is, location, environment. 

Very important groups relate to physiology, the science 
of health ; pathology, or the science of disease ; chemistry, 
or the science of composition ; morphology, or the science of 
the form elements. 

Another division relates to the length of time a healthy 
man can live on single foods and keep well. Another to 
the effect of double or multiplied foods at meals and to the 
production of disease by feeding common foods exclusively 
for a specific length of time. An important division relates 
to curing disease by feeding rightly. There are divisions as 
to the parts of the body, as brain or nerve, heart, bone, tooth, 
hair or nail food. Another as to how often it is used, 
The chemists much prize the division of food as to heat units 
which are called calories (calor-heat). Physicists delight 
in the division of foods in dynamis (not dynamos) or the 
conferring of force or energy, including electricity, mag- 
netism or will, that in action is called real, and when stored, 
potential. A division that physicians of all schools prize is 
that of change of climate. 

Food is also called natural and unnatural — the first the 



PROLOGUE — AIR 3 

instinct of savages, while the second is found most in civ- 
ilized life. 

The division or test most popular in civilization is the 
choice of food by its beauty to the eye, the taste and ear ; 
that is, the aesthetic. The French affirm that foods that 
look and taste good must be good. What a beauty to rhe 
thirsty ear is the sound of ice in a pitcher of water on a hot 
day ! Or the crackling in the frying-pan to a hungry, tired 
hunter of the game he has brought home ! Many shorten 
their lives from this love of beauty in the taste of food, over 
and above everything else. 

Fashions in food: Custom has the greatest weight in 
selecting food, but the first thought should be, will this 
feeding agree with my health? 

AIR 

The first food taken after birth is breath or air. It is 
a food, because its oxygen goes at once into union with the 
blood (in the lungs), which "is the life," and without air 
comes death in five minutes or less. In other words, air 
builds up the liquid tissue blood, replacing blue (venous) 
blood with red (arterial) blood and thus sustains life. The 
ancients called air, food. The moderns do not conventially 
in words, but in deeds ; especially in annual migrations to the 
mountains and sea by millions and in home and foreign 
travel to recuperate body and intellectual life by fresh air. 

Besides oxygen, air contains nitrogen, argon, steam or 
watery yapor, fog, mist, cloud, rain, snow, hail, smoke. 
The physical forms found in the air teach that it is a great 
vehicle or carrier of finely divided substances, organic and 
inorganic. This is proved by dust on furniture in closed 
rooms. A 36-inch in diameter glass-topped microscope table 
in the eighth story of a New York apartment house in 



4 AIR 

summer time would be covered with dust in half a day so 
that one's name could be writ on it. A common house water 
pail was filled with snow in a sheltered place under trees 
in a thicket in Central Park, New York. Melted, there was 
a half inch of soot-black dirt, which under the microscope 
was made up mainly of minute balls or spheroids of half 
burnt soft coal cinders coming from the elevated railroad 
more than 1,000 feet away. 

Clouds of smoke ; the missiles in tornadoes ; the bacteria 
that sunlight kills; the organisms borne more than sixty 
feet high in moist air of malarious climes; the parasites of 
grippe ; insects and winged fowl ; ail are found in air. 

Light exists without air, but there is no light for man 
without the medium of air. Man could not live in total 
darkness. So air is mentioned here not only as a body but 
also as a mental food, in the glories of the treasures of 
radiance revealed at sunrise and sunset. No matter if 
unappreciated, these displays are rich spiritual food to many 
souls. 

Among the invisible mental foods in air are speech and 
song. All that we hear are things of the air. The joys, 
the glories, the wealth of language, spoken or sung, and 
vocal griefs and disgraces would be nought save for air. 

Electricity influences the quality of air as food. Witness 
the salubrity after thunderstorms, which is due not to 
moisture alone but to the ozone, the cool temperature and 
the washing out of foreign bodies from the atmosphere. 

Sea air is not strictly pure, for it holds salt in suspension 
with water ; dust settles in the sea and is lost. 

The friction of water waves with air generates ozone. 
Professor R. E. Rogers, 1853-54, showed a machine of his 
invention where electricity was generated by the friction 
of steam and air through holes in apple tree wood. 

The effect of canals replacing streets was shown in 



AIR b 

Amsterdam (Holland), 1890; the canals not only collected 
street dust, but lessened the number of wheels to grind pave- 
ments to powder. 

The tips and points of leaves of trees are silent dissipators 
of air electricity and thus may help the conversion of carbon 
dioxide into oxygen and carbon and as a form of motion 
may stimulate and facilitate the life motion of the leaf cells 
to the full performance of their functions, especially as 
these functions involve the movement of osmosis between 
liquids and gases. 

The term "life of the air" may be due to the sun's 
light, heat and electricity and to all forms of motion 
making ventilation ; or, to winds and osmosis of air gases 
and other molecular movements of diffusion and penetra- 
tion. 

Some of the requisites of healthy air food are general 
motions to carry off the heavy carbonic and carbonous acid 
gases and the other exhalations from man and fungi, to 
be replaced by fresh air from elsewhere. It must not be too 
cold, moist or drafty, since such air carries off heat from the 
body as buckets do grain in an elevator. Air must not be 
stagnant as the said acids settle down, making it poisonous. 
There is also a lack of diffusion of gases where heavy gases 
underlie iighter ones. 

Mushrooms grow best in dampness, darkness and stag- 
nation of air ; sunlight air kills them and most fungi ; algae 
like light. 

Impure air food does not fully nourish, hence the body 
becomes weaker and more liable to disease ; sometimes it is 
the great forerunner of tuberculosis ; when the vitality is 
lowered then the fungi of tuberculosis prey on the system. 

If carbonic acid gas were retained in the air in excess 
mankind would painlessly perish and probably also all leaf 
and frond bearing plants, 



AIR 



It is not to be inferred that all air fungi destroy life 
or promote disease if the breather of the air is well. The 
healthy mucous membranes in breathing through the nose 
(the natural way) protect; they even make pure the air; 
light a common sulphur match and hold it burning six 
inches from your open mouth while you unnaturally breathe 
through it as long as you can; then make the like test 
breathing through the nose and you will find the difference. 
Even the tuberculous bacilli found in a healthy mouth are 
powerless because of a sound constitution ; a man is always 
more or less surrounded by the causes of disease which are 
powerless if met by a healthy individuality. 

Animalization of fungi means that the fungi, for example, 
of rye straw are powerless on man unless infected by the 
fungi of human excretions — then the fungi of the straw 
becomes poisonous to a high degree. This was pointed out 
in the Civil War. In the late war with Spain it also 
transpired that recruits became speedily sick with measles 
from the rye straw fungi wet with human excretions. It 
is probably the same with the fungi that cause baldness ; 
they become poisonous when confined under a cap or hat, 
because of the animalization by the sweat from the head 
and then they gain entrance to the hair follicles; a lunatic 
who never wore a hat outdoors or in and preached in rain 
or shine in a courtyard at Blockley, had a splendid. head of 
kinky hair, probably because the air and sunlight did not 
allow the fungi to become animalized. 

It should be remembered that the mixing of animal 
liquid and solid secretions with vegetable secretions in sink 
drains and sewers animalize the innocent fungi into poison- 
ous ones and cause diseases by aerial dispersion. 

Bric-a-brac obstruct ventilation. Once a very sick 
lady was in a small room in a large New York apartment 
house, gasping for air; the place was full of bric-a-brac 



AIR 



and furniture; immediate improvement followed when only 
the bed and one chair remained in the apartment. A good 
way to ventilate for fresh air food is to open all the doors 
and windows, no matter what the hour and weather, and 
swing the doors to and fro about ten to twenty times a 
minute ; this flushes out the bad air at once ; immediately 
close up before the walls are cooled off; if in winter throw 
a light shawl over the head of the patient, and no matter 
how sick, they will be protected. Cases of pneumonia are 
said to do better out of doors. Reasonable. 

Examples of good air food are found on the eastern 
shore of Buzzard's Bay, Mass. ; leave Boston on the hottest 
day, swelter in the cars until you come to the northern end 
of the bay and, as a rule, a cool breeze of ozone air food 
will then refresh you; you can feel its vigor feeding even 
your spinal cord and strengthening your nerves ; these words 
are used advisedly, as babes improve, thus proving there is 
no "suggestion or hypnosis." Some think because the 
fauna or flora of the gulf stream are found in Buzzard's Bay, 
and because its water is about 25 ° F. warmer than that of 
Massachusetts Bay, shortly distant, that it is the gulf stream 
that gives the bay salubrity ; besides, the tides are not 
synchronous with those of Vineyard Sound nor of the ocean 
on the east coast of Cape Cod; at Woods Holl the highest 
tide is only eleven inches, and this may make some difference 
as to warmth ; one may be exposed to the direct rays of the 
sun on the eastern shore of Buzzard's Bay and not feel the 
need of shade. 

The chief complaint in hot weather about air is its 
humidity: The higher the degree of humidity the harder the 
weather is to be borne ; the air feels heavier, soggy and 
weakening, and the accumulation of sweat increases ; steam 
is constantly exhaling from the body surfaces that are 
exposed to the air, that is, the skin and air passages ; breathe 



8 AIR 

on a glass mirror that is cooler than the breath and water 
will condense on it from the breath as on an ice pitcher on a 
hot day; if the atmosphere is not saturated, this invisible 
watery vapor (steam) is readily dissipated, but if the air is 
saturated with humidity the watery exhalations from the 
twenty-hve miles of human sweat ducts collect on the body 
surfaces in a very manifest abundance and disagreeableness. 
Sweat prevents vaporization and hence the total coolness by 
the vaporization of the sweat is lessened, the body becomes 
hotter and more uncomfortable to the indwelling spirit and 
suffers. On the other hand, cold (heat relatively diminished) 
with high humidity is harder to be borne than dry cold air, 
because the aerial moisture is a better conductor of heat and 
electricity than dry air and thus conveys away so fast as to 
chill the body quickly. Wet clothing chills faster, as its intra 
and interstitial air is replaced by water and the humid air 
environment coming from said wet clothing in evaporation 
by the heat of said body cools by the thermic withdrawal 
in order to make up the latent heat of said vapor or steam 
required to liquidize. 

Air humidity bears upon food because more is needed 
to maintain the human body normally — because disease and 
sickness often follow, sometimes called "colds," which 
require much food to make health again and because the 
quality of air food is lessened for some people ailing with 
gravelly rheumatism, asthma, etc. Besides, the nerve-feeding 
power of air food is lessened. 

Air holds water in steam at all temperatures, even below 
the zero of Fahrenheit, and in such quantities that it 
descends in torrents and cloudbursts as distilled water to 
destroy lives and property. 

Air food circulates down deep in the earth and thus feeds 
the roots of plants carrying the carbonic acid gas and other 
gases that chance to be in it. The good of hoeing, plowing 



AIR — MILK 9 

and cultivating is in facilitating the access of air and water 
to the soil and plants; soil that has become dry from lack 
of rain is found to be full of small channels through which 
the water is being evaporated or drawn up by the sun; 
a light cultivator will break up these channels, the water 
will be held in the soil and then pass into the plants; the 
effect is shown within twelve hours by the increased vigor 
of the plant life, though no rain has occurred. 

MILK* 

Milk, containing solids and liquids enough to sustain 
life, is the next natural food which babes should have. 
According to prologue, it ranks as organic, animal, min- 
eral, because it comes from animals and contains 92 per 
cent, of water and all the mineral elements found in the 
body. It is also intellectual, as it builds up mind and soul 
in infancy — stands all the physiological tests for babes — 
is beautiful to the eye and taste — good, if from healthy 
animals and bad if from unhealthy animals or if contami- 
nated by wrong outside matters or if improperly kept. 
When good, it makes normal tissues and secretions in the 
human body. It is also used to combat chronic disease. It 
furnishes heat and actual and potentialf energy. 

Good fresh milk is good in any clime. It is Nature's 
sole food for adults only in large amounts daily. There is 
again not a sufficiency of milk for adults to live on it alone, 
and with such subsistence would come wasting of teeth 
from lack of use. 

* Dairy products, 1899 (U. S.) $600,000,000; milch cows value over 
$500,000,000; nineteen millions of cows U. S. (Facts about milk, Farmers' Bul- 
letin 42, Dept. Agriculture.) 

fin the Boston Subway are signs — "Danger, Third Rail Alive." This 
rail, looking like the others, has the power to kill those who touch it. Thus 
its force is potential when intact. 



IO MILK 

The late Prof. E. A. Wood, M.D., of Pittsburg, fed 
young dogs on soft foods, and their teeth became bad, while 
other dogs fed on meat and bones had good teeth. Some of 
the badness was probably due to want of mineral salts in the 
soft foods, but not all. Parenthetically, an instance is given 
of the emperor moth that has the greatest difficulty to come 
out from its cocoon, but when it is out, its wings expand at 
once and bear it away ; the narrator said that the narrow 
opening of a cocoon was enlarged with scissors, the moth 
emerged, but could not fly, as its wings and legs had not been 
developed by the effort of pushing through the cocoon walls. 
It is good to have food chewed by the teeth. 

Milk is universally acknowledged to be food. Vegeta- 
rians claim entire abstinence from animal food, yet strangely 
put milk at the head of their food lists ; to be consistent 
they should exclude it as the most animal of animal foods. 
There is an advantage in drinking milk immediately after 
withdrawal ; it has no germs, gases, nor faints absorbed 
from the air to enter with it into the stomach and there 
produce unhealthy fermentation and disturb the liver. A 
majority of grown-up people cannot take milk that has been 
some hours away from its source, without in time liver and 
stomach disturbance. Fresh milk has also vital warmth; 
cattle men know this and feed it in abundance to sickly 
calves. When immediately bottled, fresh milk can be kept 
fairly well for a time without any contamination. It, of 
course, lacks the vital warmth. 

There is no need of the conventional lack of warm milk 
for babes except because of the dictates of fashion which 
inflict a grievous wrong on the race, weakening the con- 
stitution, shortening lives, causing much sickness and death, 
making tooth cutting a disease, instead of a natural act, 
producing human bodies with less than the normal resist- 
ance to causes of disease, weaker intellects, bad tempers, 



MILK II 

nervousness, poor eyes, teeth, hair, nails, skins — in other 
words, conferring bad constitutions that do not stand the 
wear and tear of life, the worst legacy parents can leave 
to children. Proper feeding and hygiene for mothers will 
furnish an abundance of milk. So-called infant foods are 
not superior to the natural product of lactation; even their 
makers admit this, but one such said that "No matter what 
is done, modern mothers will not suckle their babes." 
Hence it is inferred that mothers will buy foods for their 
babes of apothecaries. 

Milk is made up of water, cream, casein, sugar of milk 
and all mineral salts found in the system. Because of the 
refraction of minute oil and fatty acids in globes or globules 
the color is white, as the color of clouds from inhnitesimally 
divided globules of water, that generally escape the naked 
eye or as snow looks white from beautiful, feathery stx- 
sided crystals of ice and yet not so small as fat globules in 
milk. The highest power of the microscope, Tolles Ameri- 
can one seventy-fifth inch objective, with a two-inch eye-piece 
(3750 diameters), shows each globule dancing and rolling 
about actively with no visible motor power. Some attribute 
this motion to the disagreement, or want of chemical 
agreement, with the water of the milk which is colored 
white by these very globules just as the serum of the blood 
is reddened by the red corpuscles ; [filter the water perfectly 
from the milk and it will be clear like any other water when 
the coloring matter is not in solution and does not go 
through the filter.] If electricity is reasonably a cause of 
motion of the heavenly bodies, then may it not move these 
apparently automobile milk globules, whose movements re- 
mind one of the small pith balls connected with a static 
electrical machine in motion? Certainly wireless telegra- 
phy, cars and motors excited by invisible currents of elec- 
tricity furnish some ground of analogy. 



12 MILK 

The healthy digestion of milk: The nerve centers of the 
"abdominal brain," i.e., the solar plexus of nerves, cause 
an exosmosis (outward flow) of all the water of milk, 
leaving the casein firmly coagulated by the stomach acid 
into a cheese, which later an endosmosis (inward flow) of 
gastric juices commanded by said "solar plexus" will dissolve 
by the slower process of digestion. Thus there is an easier 
entrance of this food into the circulation than with solid 
foods, saving the vital powers (dynamis) in babes to go 
on with the wonderful work of tissue and organ building. 
To show the power of the solar plexus it has been said, 
"Smite a healthy man over the pit of the stomach after a full 
meal; if not immediately killed, he will fall insensible and 
the stornach juices will pour out from his mouth in a stream 
of jelly like discharge." 

Curds in the stomach are not necessarily a sign of dis- 
ease, but when a stomach is foul with alcoholic and vinegar 
yeast fermentation and upward peristaltic movements bring 
the curds to light, such are signs of stomach trouble, not 
because curds come up (for curds are normal in digestion)., 
but because the alcoholic and vinegar ferments cause the 
trouble, or, to put it differently, when food does not digest 
nor properly digest, the said yeasts always present attack 
said undigested foods. But said yeasts should do their 
work on starches and sugars and not on the milk. . There 
is a lactic acid alcohol and vinegar at work in sour milk, 
and when the sugar acid or common alcohol and vinegar 
are added to the lactic acid family, there may well be a 
trouble which we call disease, to wit, curds full of such a 
yeast combination or trust. The solar plexus does well to 
get rid of them the shortest way, by the gullet, one foot 
instead of twenty-six feet of intestine. It is well to 
remember the autonomy of the stomach. {See Fermenta- 
tion.) 



MILK 13 

Cheese is a good food. Vegetarians adopt it as a vege- 
table ( ?) food. It must be good to be in two kingdoms, 
animal and vegetable (?). In the 1648 English civil 
war cheese was an article of military food on both 
sides of the conflict (Clarendon's History). And David 
killed Goliath because they met when David brought cheeses 
to his brothers who served in Saul's army; (I Samuel 17, 
18). Cheese is a concentrated and more permanent food 
than all other air exposed preparations of milk. 

Butter is a partial separation of the solid fats of milk, 
among which lecithin is found, a brain and nerve food. It 
is the most royal of all fat foods, used successfully in place 
of cod liver oil in tuberculosis ; it does not clog the liver 
nor resist digestion like other fats, as margarine and suet ; 
it can be given more safely in the treatment of fatty de- 
generation, i.e., Bright's disease of kidneys, etc., than any 
other fat; it affords more potential energy. All the oils of 
milk are not separated from butter, as oils are found in its 
morphology, i.e., under the microscope. 

Oleomargarine substitutes are not as good as genuine 
butter, which contains many important fat acids that the 
"oleo" has not. The fatty areolar tissues of bovines (tal- 
low) and tape worm eggs are not nutritiously equal to the 
exquisitely and wonderfully compounded phy to-chemical 
physiological secretion of the epithelial cells of the milk 
glands. 

The ethics of kine milk production are so bad that the 
State appoints inspectors. In face of the full knowledge 
that bad milk is disease and death to innocent babes, some 
farmers, middlemen and retailers have recklessly given 
proof that the cause of the baby-loss is the greed for gain. 

In Boston once, to prevent an Association of Milk 
Consumers from getting pure milk, middlemen bought up 
all the milk cans in the city, hired out as deliverers, fouled 



14 MILK 

the milk and also paid servant girls to put the cans with a 
little milk on red hot stoves, etc. The Secretary of the 
Massachusetts State Board of Health said that the farmers 
themselves had been detected adulterating their kine milk. 

Skim milk is sold as pure; producers have been known to 
stall feed kine covered with sores and full of disease. The 
cow is deprived of her calf which is bad for mother and- 
calf. Stall feeding is not healthy nor natural — affords nests 
for the development of disease that depends on a retarded 
and impeded circulation, specially fatty degeneration of 
muscles and tuberculosis. The hoofs grow all out of shape, 
making walking difficult. Bad feeding makes bad milk. 

Stall cattle fed on sour distillery refuse give the best 
chance* for tuberculosis to develop, which is more prevalent 
since "silos" feed cattle. Alcohol and vinegar yeasts are 
abundant in "silo" food. We do not think that tuberculous 
milk (which we do not recommend) infects healthy people 
because the disease is successfully resisted. But when one 
is sick or weak, the danger of communication is certainly 
great. (It must be remembered that cattle men, working 
amongst tuberculous cattle, rarely have the disease; this 
is noted, because there has been so much of late as to the 
contagiousness of cattle tuberculosis to man.) Some years 
ago, the senior writer studied the blood of milch kine fed 
in the open air on fine pasturage and not on silos ; the 
vinegar yeast plant was scarcely found as it is abundantly 
in man in tuberculosis ; while other cattle differently fed 
and condemned to die by expert veterinarians under the 
authority of state law, were found to have in the blood the 
vinegar yeast plants ; autopsies confirmed tuberculosis find- 
ings before death.* Happily our State Boards of Health 

* (American Blood Test for Cattle Tuberculosis, N. E. Med. Monthly, July, 
1896; Amer. Monthly Mic. Journal, Oct., 1896.) 



MILK 1 5 

have come to the reform of milk ethics, and now it is 
possible to get good milk in cities, specially in sealed bottles. 
Again, public attention has been roused to cattle tuberculosis 
and there is an improvement in feeding. 

Cooking probably prevents the infection from tubercu- 
lous milk just as the yeasts in common bread are destroyed 
by 285 ° F. 

Buttermilk is what is left after butter has been churned 
out. It is mainly the water, the cheese or casein and the 
salts, organic and mineral, of the milk. 

The quality of kine milk is not as good when in quantity 
as when scantier. (See reports Conn. Agric. Station.) Jer- 
sey kine milk is scant and rich. Holstein cattle are said to 
produce a large quantity of good milk. Perhaps the best 
milk comes from crosses of "native" stock with high bred 
cattle. Forcing processes of kine milk production do not 
necessarily injure the milk, but there is more water and 
less of solids. Small Baldwin apples are better than over- 
grown. 

Sterilization of milk is heating it to about 170 F. to pre- 
vent fermentation. It is not boiled, as the latter process 
changes milk chemically to a disadvantage. 

Hydrogen dioxide, one teaspoonful to a pint, will keep 
milk from souring ; it is not harmful ; does not change the 
character of the milk. 

The best way to sterilise and keep human milk is to hold 
it in the breasts ready for use with all its dynamic vitality 
unimpaired in its fresh condition. 

In cases of last resort the best substitution for mother's 
milk is a healthy wet nurse ; next the strippings of kine milk 
diluted one part to two parts water. Sweeten with common 
sugar. Or, take the upper two-thirds of a jar of milk — add 
one-third part of water and sweeten with common sugar; 



l6 MILK 

use a tubeless bottle with an india rubber nipple, that has 
been kept clean, pure and dry and large enough to invert 
when washing. 

When milk disagrees with fC grown-up s, }} it is shown by 
biliousness, indicated by general symptoms often and always 
by heating the urine with nitric acid, turning the specimen 
to various shades of brown, red and black, according to 
amount of bile present; the bile has been absorbed by the 
blood and removed by the kidneys; instead it should go 
down because of the worm-like squirmings and motions of 
the bowels (peristalsis) and participate in the work of 
digestion therein. One practical proof of the value of 
milk warm from the cow is that in "grown-ups" it agrees 
and does not make the urine bilious. 

The use of cream and milk in tea and coffee drinks is 
not necessarily injurious. The troubles that come from tea 
or coffee drinking are mainly due to the combination of milk 
and sugar because of their liver-clogging qualities. To 
anticipate, the liver makes all the sugar or glucose needed, 
without the adding of sugar to tea or coffee drinks; if the 
milkless and sugarless Oriental customs of drinking tea 
or coffee were followed by the Occidentals, there would be 
less complaint of tea and coffee. For years, experience has 
shown that sick persons (with a few exceptions) can take 
sugarless and milkless tea and coffee when on the strictest 
diet. Many also bear well milk added to tea or coffee. 

A good practical way to test whether milk agrees is to 
study the urine and blood; if milk does not bring free 
oil from under the skin into the serum of the blood speci- 
men on the slide, nor fatty epithelia nor casts nor albumin 
into the urine — nor bile — one can be sure that milk agrees 
with patients. 

Milk and cholera infantum: Notoriously this complaint 
occurs among human-milkless babes or of those whose 



MILK 17 

mothers feed improperly. Nothing is plainer. A primipara 
had terrible convulsions, the babe being 24 hours old; this 
experience gave wisdom; care was taken with her food so 
that all three of her children were fed on their mother's 
milk ; they were sick with cholera infantum but once, caused 
by miserable feeding in a seashore boarding house. 

Cholera infantum here means a disease in the nursing age 
characterized by profuse or scanty discharges of the bowels. 
A better term would be chronic diarrhoea. It is common 
in ill fed babes, specially when cutting teeth ; which is a 
peculiarly hard work for the systemic forces (dynamis). 
If said dynamis is wasted in digesting poor food and if it 
is not maintained by a full and complete nourishment, or if, 
as is sometimes the case, the alimentary canal is partially 
paralyzed by the gases of fermentation, carbon dioxide, 
sulphuretted hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, etc., given 
off by the yeast plants in the intestines — then there is such 
a loss of dynamis that there is not enough (as said before) 
to develop the teeth cutting machinery and the teeth suffer 
simply because the constitution is unequal to the task of 
dental development and the piercing the gums because 
the mineral food is scant. And all this sorry state of things 
because mothers will not eat so as to feed their infants 
properly, because of fashionable ethics. The young of other 
animals than man have really a better chance for their 
birthrights than infants. Can we realize this terrible state- 
ment? The mothers who thus deprive their children, also 
suffer the annoyances, inconveniences and maternal anguish, 
incident to seeing their children sicken and die. In 1900 we 
hear of Chinese soldiery slaying infants by tossing them 
alive on bayonets and spears ! This is execrable enough, 
but is it not a shorter and hence more merciful death than 
the prolonged agonies, pains and distresses of infants dying 
bv the slow tortures of cholera infantum? 



WATER 

Fluid wonderful, enters all tissues; a large essential 
part of the life of all animals and plants ; a part of the air, 
92 per cent, of the milk, three-quarters at least of the body 
(human) and very largely goes into all foods (liquids, of 
course,) and solids. It holds about the earth the sun's heat. 
It carries heat to frozen zones by the Gulf Stream so that 
said cold places become warm and inhabitable. 

Chemically pure water, H 2 0, is made up of one equiva- 
lent of oxygen and two of hydrogen ; such is said to be 
found in the laboratories, but that must be taken in a quali- 
fied sense as "pure air" is. The distilled water of the 
chemist made in a closed vessel is unfit to drink; it tastes 
bad 'from the burnt odors (empyreumatic), which chemical 
analysis does not detect, but the drinker does detect with a 
disgusted palate. 

Formless pure water is that from which all forms of 
plants and animals and of solid mineral matters are removed. 

Kinds of water tit to drink {potable) are: Aerated dis- 
tilled water (that is distilled and mixed with air by dropping 
some 2y 2 inches from still), spring, well, river, pond, ditch, 
pool, marsh, driven well, filtered, artesian, hydrant, ship. 

Some water combinations not fit to drink are: intoxicat- 
ing liquors ; carbonated drinks ; alcohol ; drug fluid extracts ; 
essences ; cordials, etc., save as medicine given as. any other 
poison. 

It should not be forgotten that water is present in grains 
as wheat and rye, in woods, stones, metals, garments and 
that there is hardly a physical thing perceivable but what 
contains more or less water ; space in vacuum is waterless. 

Distilled Water 

At the temperature of average human life, water is a 
liquid. At higher temperature water becomes steam. The 

18 



WATER 



19 



process of changing, by heat, a liquid or solid, is called 
distillation ; also the process of condensing water from steam 
is included. Thus the psalms speak of distilling the gentle 
dew of Mt. Hermon; the dew comes as the drops on a 
pitcher of ice water on a hot day and on plants on cool 
vapory nights. The two essential steps of distillation are 
vaporization and condensation. 

Object in distilling water: Purification. The steam car- 
ries with it none of the salts always to be found in natural 
waters; nor any bodies less volatile (vaporized) ; it leaves 
the plants and animals behind; it loses its air; this is 
remedied by having the distillate take the spheroidal con- 
dition by falling from the still through the air not less 
than two inches; in this process the air mingles with the 
water and gives zest and for aught we know supplies 
needed nitrogen and oxygen to the digestive organs. 

Needs of artificial distillation are heat, a closed reservoir 
for the water, save an outlet for the steam, condensers 
either of water or air and a receptacle with two inches of 
outside air for aeration (air mixing) ; the process is simple; 
the fewer the complications the better, as they add to the 
expense and care; the usual form of a water still (not of 
the laboratory) is a boiler with steam pipe at top issuing 
into a coil of pipe which is plunged into cold water or air. 

The process: First the steam is made. Next it comes 
into the condenser cooled by water or air. Third it turns 
into water giving off 700 ° F. for every unit of comparison ; 
the heat is absorbed by the cold water in one case or air in 
the other. Fourth, the distillate, in drops, falls and thus 
takes up the air. There are stills that condense by cold air ; 
a typical one would be to have a steam exhaust go into a 
metal pipe out of doors, vertical, with protected openings 
at top of pipe; here the air heated by the steam rises and 
is immediately replaced by cool air to be treated in like 



20 WATER 

manner and so on exactly as in a common steam radiator; 
this has been utilized by the writers by putting an inch ledge 
in a common wash boiler (all around) four inches from 
the bottom — by arranging an outlet pipe at the lowest 
point above this rim or ledge ; two inches of water are put 
in the boiler on stove and the still is ready for work even 
with sea water. Rain is distilled water coming from every 
surface of water, or wet with water, all trees, all bodies 
of plants and animals as shown by the parched condition 
of almost everything after a protracted drought ; distillation 
is here called drying; when we dry we distill oft' the water 
which goes into the air as invisible vapor (steam) to be 
wafted to and fro and descend as rain (distilled water). 

Oilce repeating Halle's experiment, a good-sized branch 
was taken from an apple tree in perfect health on a bright, 
clear, sunny summer's day ; an india rubber tube was tightly 
sprung over the large end of the branch and the other end 
of the tube was tightly put into a glass tube two inches 
long, filled with water, and holding the india rubber tube 
tight, the glass was set into a vied of mercury ; the mercury 
ran up two inches and stood there drawn up by the evapora- 
tion of watery sap from the leaves as it had no chance to 
return ; the mercury was held by the air pressure. 

The greatest natural distillers, with the aid of the sun, 
are the oceans, seas, lakes, aquatic and marine, which con- 
stitute five-sevenths of the globe's surface; they run all the 
time and furnish the invisible steam, clouds, fogs, mist, hail, 
snow and rain on a stupendous scale, giving boundless sup- 
ply to water the land. The ocean is salt, as the waters that 
run in carry more or less of common and other salts, minerals 
and metals in solution. 

Aerated distilled water is best for diseases that are 
caused by crystals and granules as found in asthma, rheuma- 
tism, gout, angina pectoris, gall stones; as, having no salts 



WATER 



21 



whatever, its full power can be used to dissolve the gravels, 
stones, concretions, which never would have been had the 
sick drank water enough in all probability. Dr. Koppe says 
distilled water is a poison, but we have never seen poisonous 
results after years of experience. It is difficult to conceive 
of its being poisonous, as water is so indispensable to life. 
The epithelia of the natural cavities or reservoirs form 
watery liquids for body uses and bear water well. The 
skin epithelia swell up and turn white when soaked in water 
(in the washerwoman's hands, for example, but in this case 
soap is an element). A street vender of a spring water 
showed hands which were whitened by contact of his goods, 
but in a long study of the secretions of the human body by 
the microscope never have we seen any such whiteness of 
the epithelia. On the contrary, the senior writer's studies of 
hydrant, pond and lake waters for over thirty years have 
amazed him by the finding of such a large number of appar- 
ently perfect pavement epithelia and it would seem as if 
human epithelia were, like their congener hair, the most 
imperishable of tissues in water. So when distilled water 
is called a poison, destructive of epithelia because it turns 
skin epithelia white when improperly used, it seems a mis- 
nomer. Living epithelia cannot do their work of osmosis, 
secretion and excretion through their membranous walls un- 
less water is present and the purer the water the better. 
Aerated distilled water is the purest of waters. 

Well Water 

This refers to water obtained by holes in the ground, 
sometimes to the depth of ioo feet; generally a common 
well is about 1 5 to 20 feet deep ; this method furnishes water 
for the great mass of civilized mankind in the country 
mostly from rain water that has soaked into the earth or 
from melted ice or snow. Well water is not equal to dis- 



22 WATER 

tilled, as it holds in solution the soluble mineral and animal 
matters that it dissolves on its way to the submerged pond, 
lake or sea; these dissolved substances are useful to man, 
but not in large proportion, as phosphorus and the phos- 
phates found in well water form concretions called calculi, 
a good name, as calculi are to all appearances "stones ;" so 
of marble or carbonate of lime, which has its use, no doubt, 
but in excess causes marble rheumatism, when it collects in 
the tissues in granular and crystalline forms, Kidney 
calculi for more than half a century have been accounted 
for by surgeons by the use of well water in limestone dis- 
tricts. Such patients were swallowing lime in too large 
amounts and their drinks already loaded with the lime 
could not carry off the same as limeless water would have 
done. An easy way to study the amount of salines in the 
water of a district is to examine the amount of steam boiler 
incrustation. Other matters in well water are yeasts and 
fungi, which give off carbonic acid like animals and cause 
disease, specially typhoid fever, when animal secretions and 
excretions mingle in the well, producing albumenoid ammo- 
nia which will be dissolved and run through all filters, 
going even where the yeasts and other fungi do not go or 
in very minutest proportions. So that well water may stand 
the tests of taste and eyesight and yet be noxious to those 
whose constitutions are weak and harmless to those whos^ 
constitutions are strong. Other sources of impurity to well 
water are animals, as to acts and by falling into closed wells 
where they drown and slowly putrefy. Air gets into closed 
wells through the ground. 

The typical well is the driven tube. If down far enough 
for filtration and purity even in swamps, ditches, morasses, 
filthy ponds, lagoons, potable water can be had unless stone 
impedes the driving. In the Civil war, good water was thus 
procured in the South where it was thought impossible ; as 



WATER 23 

the camp was moved, the well was pulled up and driven in 
the new bivouac. 

Boiling of well water is good, but if too long boiled its 
air is drawn off and the salts in excess are not removed. 
But boiling kills most fungi and yeasts (which survive 
freezing) and prevents cholera. 

The excellent publications of the Boards of Health give 
rides to get good well water, but we may name some: A well 
should not get the drainings from out-houses, stables, sink 
drains nor of grounds where slops are emptied. If the soil 
is not deep, defilement may come from long distances on the 
surface of the bed rock. Wells should not be dug nor used 
in crowded city limits, where the earth has become foul with 
fungous vegetations along with decomposing animal and 
vegetable matters and in great abundance ; there is a nat- 
ural process of earth purification going on all the time, but 
in towns and cities, this purification is overwhelmed by the 
vastness of the work put on it. One has only to go through 
a city avenue, when the old rusty leaky gas pipes have been 
dug up and examine the oozing filth of the excavated ma- 
terial, smell its vile odor — to be satisfied that city well water 
is filthy, indeed, no matter how good it tastes. It would 
seem as if country wells ought to be all right ; but the rec- 
ords of the Boards of Health are full of relations of wells 
defiled by the drinkers' domestic excretions. It is advisable 
in bad country localities that tube wells be driven 50 to 70 
feet so as to have a drainage of the deepest water and a filter 
often changed that removes all the bacteria, yeasts and fun- 
gous growths. Further, a domestic still costing five dollars 
can be used that will purify the foulest spring water. 

Pool, Ditch and Marsh Water 

One ordinarily would not think of using for drink water, 
but the war of 1861-65 placed our soldiers where they could 



24 WATER 

get nothing else at times. (It has been said that they would 
drink from puddles. ) As before noted, they got good water 
by driven tube wells, so that this part of our subject may be 
referred to well water, and zve will say only a few words 
more as to these tube wells; they are too well known to need 
description; they are driven so deep, or should be, that all 
water entering them by the pressure of the atmosphere 
working through the earth is filtered like spring water, so 
that all the insoluble impurities are left behind in the stag- 
nant pool, ditch, or marsh. If one doubts the presence of 
animal and vegetable life in pools, ditches or marshes, he 
has only to gather a handful of their weeds, algae, etc., 
squeeze their drip into a tumbler and then study under the 
microscope ; all the microscopic plants and animals found in 
ponds are in excess in pools, ditches and marshes; a bag 
made of cotton cloth will filter such water if kept from 
overloading; so that in the absence of driven wells, cotton 
may be used as filters for emergencies ; the water may be 
surely clarified by running through the cotton filter three 
or four times. Cattle drink from pools, ditches and marshes 
with apparent impunity — but where is the man that eats 
grass like cattle ? 

Drink Fit Water in Sandy Deserts 

In 1854, the senior writer walked from Wellfleet to 
Provincetown, on the outer shore of Cape Cod, until the 
end was nearly reached ; he was in company with his old 
Warren Academy teacher, the Rev. A. P. Chute, who sought 
shells ; the walk was very tedious, the feet sinking up to the 
ankles at every step in the sand ; after much toil and tire, 
Highland Light neighborhood was reached unknowingly in 
the fog ; seemingly there was nothing but the sea to drink ; 
finally the senior writer thought of the interesting narrative 
of the sailors wrecked on the sandy coasts of Africa, who got 



WATER 25 

water fresh and good by scraping away a shallow pit in the 
sand at the lowest angle where the sides of two sand hills 
met; this was done; soon the excavation filled with murky 
water some three inches deep, which was found sweet, cool, 
refreshing; a tube well driven there would probably have 
given a rich supply of clear water. This leads to a brief 
consideration of 

Artesian Well Water 

This comes from wells bored deep into the earth ; one of 
these was early dug in Louisville, Ky., about three thousand 
feet deep. These wells go through rock and everything; 
the water is not always drinkable ; the above well, when the 
senior writer tested it some forty years ago, was too salt to 
drink save as a medicine. At the present, there are more 
artesian wells in use than ever was dreamed of — but the 
getting of good artesian well water is something of a mat- 
ter of chance ; it is said that the French Government is mak- 
ing the Desert of Sahara bloom with oases about deep 
artesian wells. The chief objection is the tendency to be 
laden with salts. 

Spring Water 

Runs of itself from the ground into the air ; or from under 
water as in Nevada. This classification applies to springs that 
can be used for domestic purposes like iron water. In almost 
every locality where man lives, in city, town or country, 
there are springs. In Plymouth, Mass., there are now two 
such springs used : one is small and the other so copious 
that it runs in a good-sized stream along the paved gutter 
of the chief street. A poetical spring is mountain, located 
away from the haunts of man, bubbling gently out its cool 
refreshing waters, which exposed to the air have generally 
no fungous life but only the innocent algae that throw off the 



26 WATER 

life giving oxygen gas. There is flavor, zest and satisfaction 
in a typical spring water, which is a type of the best natural 
drinking water. A curious thing about some springs is that 
they issue from mountain tops; one is on Mt. Monadnock, 
Massachusetts; there is no higher site within range of vis- 
ion ; the idea was impressed that it came by the earth's cen- 
trifugal force; the filtering of the water was thorough. 
Springs in cities and towns are subject to the same objec- 
tions as wells. The deteriorated character of the above Ply- 
mouth springs proves this. 

Sweet or fresh springs rise under salt water. Such are 
found often on the shores of Buzzard's Bay. Again, at 
Echp Lake, Nevada, which is made up of cold snow water, 
there are hot springs bubbling up from beneath. Some 
springs contain more salts than are healthy for man ; one 
advertised water has 480 grains (one ounce) of salts to the 
gallon ; this is not water fit to drink ; there is no need of pro- 
ducing calculi or gravel in the body ; no doubt an excellent 
purgative, but not for regular drinking. Some springs con- 
tain a fit amount of salts ; one in Southern Pines, N. C, with 
less than two grains to the gallon ; any spring water with 
less than ten grains of solid matter to the gallon is recom- 
mended. All springs are mineral, but this term means, in 
common usage, waters where salts and gases are in great 
abundance; they might be called saline or salt springs, but 
such come under the undrinkable. 

Cooling mountain streams are practically spring water. 
Sometimes they are ice water from beds of ice deposited in 
the intervales of mountains, shaded from the sun and pro- 
tected from the wind; there is one such in Southington, 
Conn., the year around. 

It is said that Alexander the Great had wagons laden with 
spring water carried in silver casks or barrels — that he 
drank no other water. It is a common thing that many 



WATER 



27 



people are made ill by drinking the waters of places where 
they have never been before — a good argument for aerated 
distilled water. 

River Water 

Differs from well water in having less mineral matter and 
more animal and plant life. As it is less filtered and from a 
larger watershed, it is more affected by the sources of pol- 
lution. River water has more chances of self-purification 
than well water by the algae. Also because of the animal 
life, the Crustacea, the monads, the infusoria, bacteria, which 
are common in said water ; our instincts tell us that such are 
injurious, but their direct badness has not been proved, sim- 
ply because no one has studied them alone and because 
millions of people drink them down in cities and towns and 
no increase in the death rate has been found ; the late 
Prof. Joseph Leidy, of Philadelphia, used to drink pur- 
posely, water filled with infusoria and no harm followed ; 
and this is an open question modified by the constitutional 
condition of the drinkers on the general principle that we 
live surrounded by the causes of disease (predisposing) 
which do not become exciting causes, because of the good 
health resisting and overcoming them ; hence if some strong 
men have drank infusoria harmlessly, it does not follow 
that weak and feeble men can do so likewise ; some live in 
spite of their surroundings, but most depend on them for 
their existence. So the safest way is to follow instinct and 
have the river water filtered for drink, until science tells 
us clearly that instinct is wrong, for it is not always right. 
Some think visible fish, reptiles, zvorms, insects and other 
animals harm river water. Frogs and trout are put into 
springs and wells to keep the water pure. The consideration 
here is out of place, as said animals are not found in potable 
water as a rule. It is averred that snakes and worms are 



28 WATER 

drunk and developed within the stomachs of man. We 
know worms are found in the stomach; years ago it was 
said that every one in three had internal worms, specially 
children ; the round worm may come from the common 
earth worm washed into the river and drank thoughtlessly ; 
the anguilulla found in vinegar is common in river water. 
But as to snakes so far as the writers know, no well authen- 
ticated cases are recorded; though among the southern 
negroes, who have strong convictions on the subject, cures 
by physicians have been made, but the snake or lizard ex- 
hibited to the patient was procured from the outside. It is 
always best for one to inspect and also notice the taste of 
whatever water one drinks, as the chances of introducing 
bad things are thereby lessened. 

Formerly it was considered the best form to take hydrant 
water from rivers; but as cities and towns grow, the rivers 
are defiled with sewerage and the refuse of manufactories. 
Any one who inspects the Passaic river above Newark, N. 
J., can with eye and nose get evidence enough, that it is 
too filthy to be used as drink water — the fish are even killed 
and black deposits are seen on the margins of the shores. 
Philadelphia has long used the Schuylkill river water; in 
1854, it looked so filthy that a newcomer rather objected to 
drinking it; the authorities said it was simply the clay sus- 
pended and harmless, also the carbonate of lead deposited on 
the inside of the house service pipes was insoluble and pro- 
tective when once formed ; and this did seem practically 
true ; later, about 1880, an examination of the forms to be 
found in the Schuylkill showed less clay and fewer plants 
and animals than any other hydrant water of some thirty 
cities and towns. 

The form of disease found to be the most commonly 
traced to river water (thanks to our excellent Boards of 



WATER 29 

Health), is typhoid fever. For example: Camden, opposite 
Philadelphia on the Delaware river, for the part, took its 
water from the Delaware river, a very much larger and 
deeper river than the Schuylkill, but the death rate from 
typhoid was so great that they wisely drove wells in or near 
the river to a great depth of filtration, which gave a pure 
water. About January, 1898, the supply ran short, so that 
water had to be added from the Delaware ; within two weeks 
176 new cases were reported of typhoid; this roused the 
Board of Health; measures were taken to stop the waste 
from faucets kept running to prevent freezing; the filtered 
water was then ample and only fourteen new cases of typhoid 
fever were reported in the next two weeks. 

The report on filtration of the water supply of New 
York, by Dr. Thomas Darlington, Commissioner of Health, 
July, 1905, is most important as to typhoid fever and should 
be noted by every drinker of Croton water. It asks for fil- 
tration plants on the grounds that sand filtration is no 
longer an experiment, as it removes 99^2 per cent, of bac- 
teria (the germ of typhoid) and most of the organic and 
inorganic forms of life — that it has been used in Europe for 
75 years — that in Lawrence, Mass., and Ithaca, New York, 
it has largely decreased deaths from typhoid and diarrhoea 
— that in Ithaca 10 per cent, of the inhabitants had typhoid 
from drinking unfiltered water and that since filtration, not 
a case has been found among those who drink from the 
mains, but "numerous cases have been found among those 
who still use shallow wells" — that in West Philadelphia 
( I 9°5> J an - 6 to April 28), the w T eekly percentage reduction 
of typhoid cases, comparing a population of 41,424, having 
filtration with 140,517 with no filtration varied from 
100 per cent, to 6.73 — that Berlin unfiltered 1843-52 
had one case of typhoid to 1,000 population, while fil- 



30 WATER 

tered, 1 891-1900. there was one case to 10,000 — that in 
Magdeburg, from 1831-85, one in 1,000 unfiltered and 1891- 
95 one in 10,000 filtered — that in Breslau, 1867-73, one m 
4,000 unfiltered, and 1896- 1900 one in 10,000 filtered — that 
in Hanover, 1874-78, one in 1,000 unfiltered, and 1896-1900 
one in 10,000 filtered — that in Hamburg, 1887-93, one in 
3,000 unfiltered, and one in 10,000 filtered — that during the 
cholera epidemic of 1892 Hamburg used the Elbe water 
and had 2,000 cases; while Altona filtered it and had 138 
domestic cases. 

River water can be easily filtered at home by making 
bags of cotton cloth, muslin, cheese cloth and cotton wool 
and changing often ; if the filtered matters accumulate, 
so as to form a thick layer, the clear water will cease 
to ooze and small holes in the bag will be bored through, 
the water projecting in small streams ; then stop the process, 
renew bag and use till the same deterioration occurs and so 
on. The great trouble with all filters is the need of frequent 
changing. 

It is not possible that rivers in civilization will ever be- 
come the source of drink fit water while the present system 
of sanitary arrangements and manufactory pollution exists. 
The remedy for this is to utilize for fertilizers the present 
sewerage flowing into rivers. 

According to the late Ernest Hart, M.D., editor of the 
British Medical Journal for many years, the evidence is 
conclusive that cholera is a water borne disease. 

Water of great rivers! The story is told of a ship's crew 
out of water along the coast of South America; the dearth 
was signalled to a ship hove in sight; the reply was, "Dip 
your buckets overboard ;" they did so and found fresh water 
of the Amazon. This stream is so large that it flows a 
long way before it mingles with the ocean. The denizens 
of the Missouri and Mississippi valley drink the river water. 



WATER 3 1 

Pond or Lake Water 

Is much used for cities and towns; (dams are ponds) and 
special attention is needed to be paid to it as it differs from 
rivers in being still if not stagnant — in having a smaller 
water shed or surface of natural drainage — in location in 
places sometimes so high that rivers could not be there; in 
not being subject to defilement by sewerage to the extent of 
rivers and in being more easily kept pure. Boards of Health 
have pronounced them the purest of waters and there is no 
reason to doubt this opinion. Lake Tahoe (California), is 
snow water or frozen rain thawed ; it has few if any sources 
of defilement and is so pure that its color is as blue ink ; a 
boat sailing on it seems to be in a sea of azure fluid ; the water 
is clear as crystal and the bottom distinctly seen within an 
estimated depth of one hundred feet ; vision when flat on the 
deck of the steamer's prow was as if one looked into a 
tunnel of water one hundred feet deep ; Lake Tahoe would 
be an ideal source of water supply for San Francisco. 

"Pure Water is Sky Blue. {From L' Illustration.) — 
"After long hesitation scientific men agree to-day in admit- 
ting that water physically pure, seen in mass, is sky blue. 
This color is that taken by the white light of the sun when ab- 
sorbed by the water, in consequence of a phenomenon the 
explanation of which would be a little long. 

"It is not due to the chemical purity of the water, since 
the sea (which is the bluest water) is also that which con- 
tains the most salt. Nevertheless, according to Forel's ex- 
periments, the matter in solution should be the predominant 
cause of the modification of color, upon which act, besides 
the matter in suspension, the color of the bottom and the 
reflection of the sky and of the banks. Consequently blue 
water is pretty rare in nature; a good many seas and lakes 
that give us the impression of this tint are green. 



32 WATER 

"The water at present acknowledged to be the bluest is 
that of the Sargasso Sea, between the Cape Verde Islands 
and the Antilles. The water of the Mediterranean off the 
French coast and around Capri is bluer than that of Lake 
Leman, much less blue itself than that of the lakes of Kan- 
dersteg and Arolla, in Switzerland. Pure water containing 
a millionth of ferric hydrate appears brown under a thick- 
ness of six metres ; a ten-millionth is sufficient for it to be 
green; and in order that it may remain blue is needed less 
than a twenty-millionth." 

Long Pond, Falmouth, Mass., is justly regarded as a 
very pure water supply; it is away from dwellings and its 
waters do not have the average quantity of microscopic 
planfs and animals. 

Animal and vegetable life is' abundant in pond waters, so 
much so, that it has been called a "botanical and zoological 
garden." Thirty years ago, when Prof. Paulus. F. Reinsch, 
of Erlangen, Germany, and the senior writer studied the 
forms of life in the Cochituate, Fresh Pond, Mystic and 
Croton waters, it was found that an average Collection of 
any of these waters contained about forty animals, plants or 
organic substances that could be named, while there were 
as many that had no names.* 

The chief incitement to these investigations was to study 
biology, botanical and animal ; to get a list of the inhabitants 
of the pond water, so as to know what people were drinking ; 
to find out the food relation of such fauna and flora from a 
medical point of view and specially to ascertain what was 
the cause of the particularly bad odor or taste of the Co- 
chituate water at certain seasons of the year. An historical 
memorandum is here necessary and is written in the first 
person by the senior writer : 

* Here is an opportunity for students to distinguish themselves by com- 
pleting the list; there is little competition. 



WATER 33 

"Prof. Paulus F. Reinsch, of Erlangen, Germany, was in- 
troduced to me by the late Prof. Sereno Watson, of Harvard 
University, in 1876 (when I went there to find out if the algae 
of Fresh Pond, Cambridge, had been studied and learned 
that they had not), as 'a man who is the best living algolo- 
gist in the world; he can tell you what you want.' This 
testimony has been confirmed; Professor Remsch is known 
for his vast additions to the knowledge of cryptogamic 
(flowerless) botany, extant and fossil (see Smithsonian 
Institute) ; I became the pupil of the Professor and we 
studied the morphology (morphos — form, logos — account) 
of the Cochituate and Fresh Pond waters — with as much 
zest and interest as college boys play football ; we found 
always an abundance of animals of the lobster family ; those 
shelled animals whose lungs are in the feet; those who 
have no trunk nor limbs, but who make them at will, make 
new stomachs every time they eat and divide themselves up 
into several new ones ; animals that build around their body 
substance a stone wall of minute boulders and who bore into 
larger animals with the edges of their stone house, shaped 
much like a baked bean pot ; diatoms that move at will like 
animals — apply themselves into a hoop and into beautiful 
star-like objects ; animals who act as scavengers or under- 
takers to get rid of dead creatures ; animals which under 
polarized light rival the glories of polarized salicin, chlorate 
of potash or ice ; besides, plants shaped like dumb bells, or 
half dollars with milled face and edges — like the new moon 
— like bundles of faggots — like triangles — like transparent 
rods jointed as fish poles and with green contents disposed 
in single or double spirals ; plants all of them rootless, 
branchless, free floating, unfixed in fronds, bunches, some- 
times in large transparent protoplasmic globes provided with 
regular and symmetrical green spots (gonia), provided 
with eyelashes that move together so that the plant (vol vox) 



34 WATER 

majestically rolls hither and thither at will— plants that are 
made of long green cylinders cross marked — that crook and 
bend backwards and forwards, sometimes very slowly, but 
sometimes quickly (like lashing) and which will crawl out 
of the mass in a tumbler and range themselves in rings on 
the inside glass just above the surface — plants that are 
crooked like spiral springs — that are laid out in beautiful 
mats deeply slashed but exquisitely balanced, one side against 
another, rivalling the most elegant lace work, to name no 
more; thus in search of biologic truth in pond water, we 
had a feast of eye music that delighted our souls. We were 
on the lookout for the causes of defilement, when surprised 
with so much eye delight, but did not seem to strike it ; one 
da^ I asked the professor what the spicules of sponges point- 
ed at both ends, finer than the finest needles, polished per- 
fect, some entirely smooth, some dotted with little secondary 
spines, came from ? He replied, from sponges which were 
made of protoplasmic substance, having no more strength 
than a jelly and that these spicules stretched like skewers, 
and, he might have added, built up a skeleton framework in 
which the jelly sponge is held and protected; indeed, since 
then I have seen several sponge spicules partially enveloped 
by the protoplasmic substance; at the time he pointed out 
the spicules, I did not know that there were fresh water 
sponges save very small ones, almost microscopic. I asked 
if there ought not to be large visible sponges in fresh water? 
He said, 'Yes,' and we sought for them specially in the 
Charles River, at the Needham Dam, near Wellesley; all 
we found were some very insignificant ones so small as to 
be unsatisfactory ; as we looked at all the pond water plants 
and animals with a view to the cause of the Cochituate pollu- 
tion, so the sponges were questioned ; still their insignifi- 
cance did not point to any causal relation to the awful odor 
and taste ; a guest of the late W. R. Baker of the Wellesley 



WATER 3 5 

Hotel, I made a careful study of the Charles River ; one day 
at the hotel landing I noticed a green rod three feet long and 
perhaps five-eighths of an inch thick, with longitudinal an- 
gles running parallel, lying in the water, next the wharf 
where it joined the bank ; reaching over, I was surprised to 
find it like a cactus with a crackly feel, that I had noticed in 
sponges uncleaned in the market ; immediately the evidence 
given by this crackly feel made me cry out, 'I have found 
those sponges that we sought in vain almost.' Taken to the 
room and studied under the microscope the sponge spicules 
were found in their natural place ; I left a section of the 
sponge stalk in water in a tumbler over night ; in the morn- 
ing the room was filled with the bad odor of Cochituate 
water: the odor and taste are alike; it is the odor of fish 
worms kept too long in earth in a tin box. Here was the 
problem of the dead, -fishy, earth-wormy, taste and smell of 
the Cochituate solved to be dead sponge protoplasmic sub- 
stance ! The search was made for big sponges in the Charles 
River and masses of clustered cylindrical sponges were 
found large enough to fill a bushel basket ; afterwards an 
employee said he had seen plots of such sponges now that he 
knew what they were ; Prof. Reinsch and myself brought 
sponges to the Boston Water Board, that were collected 
from the Charles River ; a collection was also sent to and 
received by the Sponge Museum at Liverpool, England ; to 
show that this was a real discovery, later the Boston Water 
Board employed Prof. Remsen, of Baltimore, to investigate ; 
the Board reported that he was the discoverer that sponges 
were the cause of pollution of the Cochituate water; while 
it is difficult to see how old Father Time can be operated on 
to make a year behind precede the year before and give pri- 
ority still the result has been most happy in a food way ; the 
Boston public were roused to their need of purer water and 
means were used so that now the forms of life in the Co- 



$6 WATER 

ehituate are fewer, the fresh water sponges are gone and the 
city also abounds with pure filtered or spring or distilled wa- 
ter. It may be added that the New York Croton Dam has 
also been improved ; when every scholar is taught how to use 
the microscope as piano use is taught, the blundering that 
allows of water food pollution will not flourish." 

To repeat: The best way to get pure water from ponds 
is by driven wells either on the margins or better out in the 
middle, one hundred feet deep in the earth below the pond. 
It is practicable. 

Horn Pond zvater litigation: The town of Woburn, 
Mass., in digging a filtering well (about fifty feet long, 
fifteen feet wide and deep), one hundred feet from Horn 
Pond, in very small boulders, found eight feet below the 
pond level, clear water ; in the charter of the water company 
or town, the mill owners' rights were provided for, if the 
water "was taken from Horn Pond;" the town, sued by 
the millers, whose water was cut down, claimed that the 
water was not taken from the pond, but on its way to the 
pond ; the senior writer was called for the millers' side ; 
previously his attention had been arrested by this filtering- 
well water said to be the purest and with this view he ex- 
amined it ; the first specimen yielded over sixty organic and 
inorganic forms ; so it could not be the purest ; had it been 
well or spring water it would not have yielded such a 
zoological and botanical garden; then a comparative exam- 
ination was made of water from the pond off the shore of 
the well site and also of water drawn directly from the well 
by buckets; it was stated on oath in court that both waters 
had a like morphology, but that of the well was less abundant 
— that the forms of life were not those found in wells — that 
if they were well water forms, the student had made a dis- 
covery that would rank him among the greatest scientists — 
that among other things a red colored water fungus, which 



WATER 37 

Professor Reinsch said was new to science was present in 
both waters, also polycocci, scenedesmus quaudricauda, Cy- 
clops, spicules of sponges, algae, etc. ; that the witness had 
no opinion as to the well being Horn Pond water any more 
than he had that a chandelier in the court room was a 
chandelier. The award to the plaintiff was double that made 
previously in a like suit. 

Remarks: This legal aspect may seem out of place here, 
but surely the conduct of this suit furnished food for the 
lawyers and shows some of the difficulties placed in the way 
of pond water, when furnished as food, by litigation which 
had been guarded against as much as possible in previous 
legislation ; the interests now are so great in pond water 
for city and town use, that the money value of ponds has 
vastly increased, the procuration and maintenance of 
pure pond water are now a gigantic business, and the magni- 
tude of water works has far excelled any of the expectations 
of the first engineers; Beacon Hill (Boston) reservoir, built 
to last for ages } has within the time of the senior writer be- 
come so inadequate that it has been torn down and the State 
House extended over its site. 

Besides clearing mud and weeds and other growths from 
ponds, it is necessary to keep the pond at one level, so that 
there will be no exposed wet littorals ; the sponges, pelo- 
myxas, rhizopods and other animals die in the air, their 
bodies decompose, and when the water rises and covers 
their place (habitat) it dissolves out the soluble dead decay- 
ing protoplasm and hence the bad odor and taste; keeping 
the ponds full also helps to prevent mosquitoes, as clean cut 
banks with no extremely shallow areas allow the killing of 
the mosquitoes in their larval stage by small fish. 

In these studies with Professor Reinsch it was learned 
that the plants and animals could be found the year round 
and not alone in the summer, as he had previously taught; 



38 WATER 

also that the same plants and animals could be found in the 
surface water of ponds even in the middle by collecting with 
a cotton bag attached to a common glass chimney. 

Humus or humic acid which stains pond water does no 
harm ; the natural tendency of pond water accidentally fouled 
is to purify itself, but it takes time, light, air, motion ; in all 
probability pond waters used as food for municipalities would 
purify themselves if they could have a chance — but the con- 
sumption is so great that it is wonderful they are as pure as 
they are. 

Fish and fowl help to purify pond water, but probably 
the sponges, algae, pelomyxas, etc., do a great deal more. 
Later a history will be given of what happens to a collection 
of pond life stagnant in a tumbler that will explain this ; 
but there is such a thing as overwhelming the purifying 
powers of nature's arrangements because of the multitude 
of the people. 

Our Government should institute as complete a list of 
plants and animals in ponds as possible ; the work is too 
great for individuals ; it might be done by States if not the 
United States ; already some of our State Boards of Health 
have gone into it well ; there is no reason why there should 
not be a census of the ordinary invisible beings in ponds 
as there is a census of the inhabitants human. 

Hydrant Waters 

The term was first used by Professor Reinsch to desig- 
nate the waters of towns, cities and municipalities which are 
drawn through a hydrant ; it includes all the kinds of waters 
here named. A peculiarity of hydrant water is the settling 
in closed pipes or cul de sacs or joints so profuse as almost 
to clog the pipes, requiring slushing through the hydrants, 
astonishing observers with the copious abundance of its 
filth. Hydrant pipes deteriorate by use, depending on the 



WATER 39 

material and the way it is put together; the best material 
is probably Russia sheet iron pipes lined outside and inside 
with Roman cement ; an example is seen in Woburn, Mass., 
where the Horn Pond water has a pressure of some seventy 
pounds to the square inch ; these pipes have been in use over 
thirty years and so far have not even given out ; practically 
they are cement pipes. The common material used for 
hydrant water pipes is cast iron ; they rust out for several 
reasons: (a) the galvanic currents in the earth; (b) making 
per se a galvanic battery which, excited by the water (hydric 
acid) rapidly eats itself away and then leaks. Some forty 
years ago the senior writer visited New York and his atten- 
tion was arrested by some of the four or five feet in diameter 
water mains that were exposed ; one section showed a dam 
or barrier of carbonate of iron stretching across so that half 
the caliber was blocked ; he took hold and found its resist- 
ance to be great ; this was galvanism with a vengeance ; how 
it was done was a wonder to the observer until some ten 
years later it was explained and the means of prevention 
stated by a New York foundryman as follows : that the 
pipes were cast horizontally ; the iron of a transverse half 
section below was weighted with the molten iron of the upper 
section so that in cooling, the lower section weighed more, 
was more compact in structure than the upper section, and 
when the pipe was full of water there was the excitation of 
a huge battery, one plate being the section above, the other 
plate the section below ; to prove this, the pipes were cast 
in a vertical position which made the same condition even 
more exaggerated, but the fact that the density of a cross 
section was uniform, stopped the galvanic action and the 
pipes were no longer dammed by the carbonate of iron ; iron 
in water is not necessarily poisonous, but in the instance 
above it was mechanically obliterating the caliber of the pipe. 
Lead pipes for hydrant water: Some waters deposit 



40 WATER 

marble on the inside of lead pipes when outside of the earth ; 
such a condition is practically harmless ; the danger of lead 
pipes is in the ground fluids forming with the inside water, 
a galvanic battery to produce soluble salts of lead, which 
may poison the hydrant water ; it is an impression that cases 
of lead poisoning from hydrant pipes are far less common 
than when under ground laid pipes convey water from wells 
for domestic uses. 

Common tin coffee pots are liable to poison hydrant 
water, specially when the solder made of tin and lead dis- 
solves off by use, so that the pots leak and the tinsmiths 
repair said leaks by more lead and tin (solder). 

Fish are a detriment to hydrant water in pipes, but not 
in trie reservoirs. 

On the whole, hydrant water is far better than well 
water. It is possible that one element in the lengthening of 
the average of life may be the use of hydrant water. Mod- 
ern water works must be deemed a blessing. Hydrant water 
means as to health less diseases of the gravel or stone kind, 
as rheumatism, asthma, gallstones, etc., simply because there 
is a less amount of salines in hydrant as compared with 
well water. 

Ship Water 

Formerly was quite bad water. The late Benjamin L. Cut- 
ter, 1 828- 1 85 1, who went a whaling in the Pacific Ocean 
about 1845, sa id that it was bad tasting and looking and 
presented masses of ropy adhesive gelatinous glue-like mat- 
ters, which nowadays is known as protoplasmic or colloid ; 
a personal examination aboard ship, confirmed the statement ; 
its explanation came many years later, in 1882, when one 
summer finding the wooden set tubs (then in use) shrinking 
by drying, water was kept in them to filling ; in a few weeks, 
large masses of ropy, adhesive, dirty, gluey, jelly formed 



WATER 41 

on the walls of the tub, taking up about one-fifth of the 
space. At first the senior writer thought here was a colony 
or polypdom of the Alcyonella stagnorum, which he had 
before seen in a mill pond at Bedford, Mass., where the 
polypdoms covered the water side of the flash boards of the 
overflow dam in masses big enough to fill a bushel basket; 
but on close examination no eggs were found armed with 
anchors — no plumatose tentacles expanding like a lady's 
parasol, instead the masses were a collection of vinegar 
plants known as mother of vinegar ; the volume was very 
great; the water smelt and looked just as ship water had 
been described over thirty years before and here is the 
. explanation : The vinegar yeast spores present in the air 
as aforesaid get into the water no matter where collected ; 
if it is the ordinary pond water, it has contained some eighty 
forms of animal and vegetable life; shut up stagnant most 
of the plants and animals die; on their dead remains, feed 
the vinegar yeast spores and there develops the gelatinous 
stage, which is known as mother of vinegar; it is our im- 
pression that these changes go on faster in wood than in 
iron tanks ; it used to be said that this ship water after many 
months would clear itself; no doubt of it; even the mother 
of vinegar disappears, but leaves behind a bitter taste : the 
water is then much better to drink than when it was a 
zoological and botanical garden. 

This purifying process of dead ship zvater may be studied 
near at hand ; filter hydrant water through a cotton bag- 
about one and one-half by four inches, with as gentle a 
pressure as pososible; when the water begins to bore 
through in jets, stop flow; remove bag, empty into a goblet, 
turn bag inside out and sop in goblet a short time ; squeeze 
bag by twisting; with a pipette remove specimens on to 
slide and cover; or, better, have a slide with an open cell, 
two by two-thirds inch, one-eighth inch deep, and place 



42 WATER 

specimen on horizontal stage ; one inch, one-quarter to one- 
tenth inch objectives; let specimen stand for a week or ten 
days and study it daily. In brief, it may be said that at the 
first day the lobster family, the rotifers, rhizopods, pelo- 
myxas, anguillulas, infusoria, the algae and the fungi are 
all in fine order — that the next day many of the animals will 
be dead — next day, monads, vibriones and greedy infusoria 
will appear for the first time in abundance; you wonder 
how they come and have a feeling that nature sends them 
as undertakers to care for the dead forms of life which 
otherwise would make a worse charnel house of the ship 
water than even now; these monads and infusorial under- 
takers act with great vim and energy, a little monad hardly 
visible will take a dead chetochilus (lobster family) and 
violently yank and tug it off better than a tow boat does a 
big ship; no visible means of propulsion are seen in the 
monads, making their automobile work more wonderful ; 
the infusoria all covered with vibrating cilia (hair-like 
feelers) also are very active; they explore the dead with a 
view to getting inside the ring and when they get there, 
they feast as if they had a better pull than any of the poli- 
ticians — indeed they eat up all, so that the outside skeleton 
is clean as transparent glass, making a fine preparation for 
the microscope which looks through rather than on the sur- 
face of things ; the senior writer has seen so many of these 
anatomically clean skeletons as to make winrows on a lee 
shore of Spy Pond, Arlington, Mass., visible for hundreds 
of feet away; after the monads and paramecial infusoria 
finish their work they disappear, a wonderful provision of 
Nature to remove animal agents — then the fungi (yeasts) 
speedily take up the labor and decompose what vegetable 
matter dead or dying that may be present and here comes in 
the vinegar plant or mother of vinegar ; when this process is 
over, there are blackened remains and bitter smell and taste, 



WATER 43 

but less harmful than the first stage of dead things, as the 
sailor experience proves ; not all animals and plants are 
destroyed ; the cyclops will live for months if not years in a 
stagnant collection of water; also the oscillatoriaceae, which 
bend and lash themselves, will often survive — but prob- 
ably all the poisonous forms are disposed of. 

Ship water is better now, as we have in our own voyages 
found splendid water; some of it is distilled; the U. S. 
Government has now ships on purpose to distill water from 
the ocean ; this is admirable and fine ; Rear- Admiral Charles 
Stuart Norton, when in command of the South Atlantic 
squadron, 1894-96, at Rio de Janeiro, distilled water espe- 
cially for bathing and ship washing, with the result of an 
unusually healthy command ; again, a few years ago, on 
visiting Gloucester to see the character of the water on the 
fishing schooners, the observer found those of the Thomas 
Hodge Company provided with an excellent water supply 
taken from the city hydrant water. Our sailors doubtless 
get now the best water ever had by them ; in case of ship- 
wreck, water can be procured by distilling if there are 
wash boilers and means of heating the sea water {see Dis- 
tilled water). 

Worms live longer than other animals in water; once 
called to test a spring water, which was in bung casks, 
the observer found when the bungs were knocked out that 
underneath were a number of two and three inch worms, 
yellow jointed like armor and bristly with points ; they were 
after the air near the bung; the gentleman who wished a 
certificate as to the purity of this spring water (kept as on 
ship-board) was told that further examination could not be 
made; it did not need a microscope to see that here was 
gross carelessness in putting up this water. One should 
never forget that in cotton cloth we have good filters every- 
where present among civilized mankind, 



44 WATER 

Cold Water 

Is used when we are hot with fever or action or warm 
weather, at a temperature of from forty-five degrees Fahren- 
heit to fifty-five degrees or to the temperature of living 
rooms ; it is neither hot, luke-warm or iced ; it cools, but does 
not chill ; tempers and refreshes ; does not paralyze the action 
of the intestines ; it is the temperature of the cool spring water 
that many long for, especially the sick; it is possible to 
drink too much cold water; there must be reason used, but 
the dangers are far less than with ice water. Thirst is gen- 
erally a good sign for cold water, when reasonable; the 
solar plexus of nerves knows when the normal dilution of 
the bk>od is not present and sets up the feeling of thirst that 
may be the most terrible instrument of human anguish ; 
cool or cold water slakes thirst the best and all its environ- 
ments of gratified sense prove it because the relief is so 
prompt, energetic, sure. 

A mineral food, it perfectly satisfies certain physical 
wants, because the processes of absorption (osmosis) diges- 
tion, elimination, dilution of blood and all secretions, to 
healthy point are not checked nor hindered ; they are rather 
instituted, set in motion, pushed to full extent; a curious 
thing happens if an excess of cold water is drank (but not 
to the point of chilling nor paralyzing), in the beautiful 
self-action of the abdominal nerve governors; immediately 
the kidneys go actively to work to carry off this excess and 
a free flow of limpid low specific gravity urine passes off; 
also it goes off by the skin in sweat and in watery discharges 
by the bowels ; we seem to be better provided for in the matter 
of excess than of diminution of cold water, because nature 
needs something to work with ; this action is seen after an 
ordinary meal ; the urine is always paler, of low specific 
gravity and freer from abnormal forms ; hence an examina- 
tion of such urine is sometimes fallacious. 



WATER 45 

A good way to procure cold water is by putting pure 
water .into bottles and placing them in the common refrig- 
erator containing ice; the water is then much like spring 
water for coolness ; we wish that all table cold waters were 
thus prepared. 

Cold water may be used at all times when common sense 
rules. Mankind is united as to the use of cold water in 
fevers more at present than formerly. It is within the recol- 
lection of persons now living that cold water was denied to 
those sick of fever ; but even then there were some that used 
it; the late Dr. Benjamin Cutter always gave cold water in 
fevers; in his library were three vellum-bound Latin books 
made up of German inaugural medical theses published in 
1729; among them was the story of a sailor very ill with 
fever on ship-board in a fresh water harbor ; he begged for 
cold water to drink ; denied as it was thought sure death ! 
However, one night he escaped his guard and jumping over- 
board, drank all the cold water he wanted ; by this time, he 
was rescued and instead of being dead, next morning was 
better and was cured speedily ; the water in this case was 
probably up to 6o° F. ; in the present day of laboratory in- 
vestigation and non-reliance on any one's saying, it is to be 
hoped that cold water will be freely used for the sick unless 
proved by actual test harmful. 

Ice Water 

Is that cooled by ice melting in it, though it takes time to 
bring cold water to 32 ° F. People differ as to its being 
injurious; (in Europe, an ice cart even in summer is a rar- 
ity) ; Americans whose cities abound in ice carts thus say 
it is not ; a city or town home in America without a refrig- 
erator is not a home. 

Doctors of medicine must decide this question. Judging 
from a long acquaintance with the use of ice water as a 




46 WATER 

drink, the writers must beg to differ with the European 
assertion and at the same time not agree that it is wholly 
innocent; the conventional usage in sickness is to give ice 
water; but where the vitality is low in chronic cases of 
organic disease, no doubt the dynamis required to bring the 
body parts that come in contact with the ice water up to 
normality is a loss, that cannot be allowed by the judicious 
physician, who is trying to save up all the body force pos- 
sible to combat the disease. The moderate use of ice water 
by the healthy overheated and thirsty is advisable with 
reason ; there are records of deaths from drinking ice water, 
but these were cases of overheating with overdrinking ice 
water, and also often with the addition of overeating. The 
intense cold paralyzed, so that the nerves were overwhelmed. 
Ice held on the skin long enough makes it numb, so that it 
can be cut without sensation. Much of the same occurs in 
the stomach when ice water is drank. If the quantity is 
small, the reaction readily restores healthy function — the 
easier if within a certain limit the body is overheated — but 
in an excessive overheating and excessive ice watering, 
nature perishes in the attempt to rescue — her forces are 
overcome and the patient dies ; another element is the put- 
ting in of several foods into the stomach which, undigested, 
speedily ferment into paralyzing gases. So then to repeat, 
the Europeans are correct in part as ice water kills some- 
times ; and Americans should heed this. We think they are 
heeding it, as there are few reports lately of death from ice 
water. Our desire is that it be used moderately; later we 
will show how ice water becomes distasteful as a daily bev- 
erage. We think that if Europeans used ice water mod- 
erately, they would be better off than now, with their wines 
and liquors. Not long ago, a butcher locked up in his re- 
frigerator, was taken out dead. Life cannot go on at 32 



WATER 47 

F. ; between this and 99 ° F. the healthy temperature of the 
human is the chasm between death and life. If the temper- 
ature is over 99 ° F. it may be well to reduce it by ice water, 
and this is what is done in sickness or overheating by exer- 
tion. But the body will not exist in health with much less 
internal temperature than 99 ° F. ; people do live in an 
atmosphere at 40 below zero F., but this is not the body 
temperature, which otherwise would be frozen stiff. There 
seems to be somewhat of an ice water habit ; all the good 
attained by using ice water could be had by cooling water in 
refrigerators as before noted. 

Ice water as a local application: Some years ago, a car- 
penter fell down into an open cellar of a mansion of which 
he was the builder ; the fall resulted in a compound displace- 
ment of one of the small bones of the wrist (the trapezium), 
and it was thought best to remove it ; being hot weather, 
special precautions were used by his medical attendant to 
prevent gangrene ; an irrigation apparatus was made where- 
by small streams of ice water washed the parts; the patient 
felt relieved, but the hand and the whole forearm irrigated, 
became just what was guarded against, gangrenously rotted ; 
the man died ; judging by this case, outside application of ice 
water proved the death of the limb irrigated and of the 
whole body. Lately another case came to our knowledge, 
where ice cold applications for extensive bruises jeopardized 
the patient's life, and only by swift interference and change 
of dressings another might have been lost. The relief by 
numbness did not hinder the process of death of the tissues 
in the first case, while the nervous system could give no 
warnings. Numb the nerves of the stomach by ice water 
and disaster may come unawares, because pain, the natural 
guardian and warner of trouble, is abolished. "No pain no 
disease" is not an axiom here. 



48 WATER 

Ice 

Is water in solid form, which has the curious and uncustom- 
ary property of taking more space than in liquid form. 
Most substances are smaller in solid than in liquid state; 
ice floats; average crystals (solids) sink in fluids; salt set- 
tles to the bottom of its solution. Were it not for this, there 
would be no need of books on food, as neither food nor man 
could exist on earth because all seas, lakes, etc., would be 
frozen solid. 

Ice is most useful in cases of fever — also in cases of 
difficult swallowing; ice-cream can be eaten when nothing 
else can ; the cooling of the inflamed throat and the lubrica- 
tioa even in organic disease will let a patient swallow when 
it was impossible before. Ice is used to cool air food; of its 
efficiency, one of the writers saw a demonstration at the 
civic reception given at Potsdam in 1890 to the Tenth 
International Medical Congress ; four to six tons of ice were 
exposed in two piles on raised platforms ; thus the air food 
was refreshed, as there was a constant circulation, the ice- 
cooled atmosphere giving place to the heated air ; dust was 
also left on the ice, further purifying the room ; the best 
effect would have resulted if the ice had been placed near 
the upper ceiling, but all present were grateful for the 
thoughtfulness of the entertainers. (The ammonia process 
is now much used in cooling air food.) The lowest tempera- 
ture ice is formed at, is the degree of cold it takes and holds ; 
American ice is regarded as furnishing pound by pound 
more cold than English. Machine ice in Louisiana is 
claimed to be less cool than ice from the North. A curious 
fact about snow is that in Alaska newcomers cannot take 
it as drink (melted in the mouth), as it would be fatal; 
probably due to the enormous consumption of latent heat in 
melting one unit of snow, requiring seven hundred units of 
heat. Reindeers and Esquimaux dogs eat it and perhaps 






WATER 49 

man eould, if brought up to it from infancy like said animals. 
But the force of these words may be better appreciated, when 
it is said that roughly one pail of snow requires seven hun- 
dred pails of heat to melt it. 

Snozv water, Boston, March, 1902, showed a great 
abundance of alcohol yeast plants. The gases found in ice 
are air and oxygen from algae. The lower the temperature 
of freezing and the larger the mass, the less air bubbles. 
Even snow by great pressure becomes solid and clear as 
glass as glaciers evidence. Ice will keep organic substances 
without change, as shown by the remains of a mammoth, 
found entombed and enveloped in an iceberg or glacier in 
Siberia or North Russia some years ago. Muscles were in 
such perfection that some were taken to London and a din- 
ner of the meat was cooked and eaten by scientific men. 
And it was said that the meat was fine, though it had been 
iced for three thousand years and probably longer. 

Ice and germ life: Over forty years ago the senior writer 
used to vaccinate cattle in such cold weather that the vaccine 
would be frozen in the stables and barns. Yet the cattle 
would take the vaccination ; no doubt germs cannot develop 
in ice at or below 32 ° F., but this does not kill them so that 
they will not develop in a higher temperature. People 
should not depend upon ice to kill germs — boiling is the best 
to do it. 

Forms of life in ice: In the Scientific American, July 29, 
1882, is a paper by the senior writer on this subject, probably 
the first published. In it is shown that quite a list of the 
plants and animals of fresh water were found in the com- 
mercial ice furnished in New York City and also that in the 
process of melting on the way to consumers, there was a 
great collection of the organic and inorganic forms that are 
found in the morphology of the air. In one instance a 
block of ice on a cart was so covered with substances from 



50 WATER 

the impact air that the ice surface was almost as black as 
ink. So far as removing aerial foreign bodies is concerned, 
the ice that cooled the said Potsdam reception is a fine con- 
trivance. And a very good way to test the morphology of 
air is to expose a piece of ice and let it melt, provided you 
know the morphology of the ice used. 

Lukewarm Water 

Is interesting; its temperature is 107 F. and its law is to 
reverse peristalsis, the worm-like movement of the stomach 
and intestines that goes on in twists and waves and naturally 
downward from the stomach. (The ancient soothsayers un- 
derstood this ; the classics are full of allusions to the study of 
the intestinal movements of live animals with abdomen cut 
open and exposed : specially done when war was to be 
made.) Sacred writ also shows that lukewarm water excites 
vomiting, that is, it is a good emetic to relieve an overloaded,, 
full or poisoned stomach. It should be much more used at 
this time. 

Hot Water 

Is that heated to the temperature of tea or coffee as usually 
drank 140 F. The temperature of boiling water is 212 
F., which some call "hot water" ; this is a misnomer and 
only to obtain unfair advantage in argument. Some physi- 
cians have said that the drinking of hot water scalds the 
"insides" ; to do this it must be 212° F. ; try it and see how 
the protective and detective nerves of the mouth will rebel ; 
to be consistent, those who condemn the use of hot water 
should never use the decoctions of tea or coffee, that are a 
part of the diet of all civilized nations. 

A decoction is a solution in boiling water of some soluble 
animal or vegetable substance ; the French call them ptizans 
and make more use of them as pharmaceutical preparations 



WATER 51 

than any other nation. The good of infusions and ptizans 
is chiefly in the water, as there could be no such thing as 
infusions without cold water nor decoctions, teas, ptizans 
without hot water. 

The chief important physiological fact as to hot water is 
that it makes a downward peristalsis, that is, it sets the 
sphincter muscles of the intestines working normally from 
the stomach. Sometimes when the stomach is full of gas, 
distended and paralyzed, hot water will cause upward peris- 
talsis or "gulluping." {See Fermentation.) 

Hot water causes normal peristalsis by exciting the 
nerves to act on the unstriped involuntary muscular fibers 
of the alimentary canal, so that even when distended pro- 
digiously they will contract worm-like from above down- 
wards and sometimes upwards ; the osmosis of the water re- 
moves the local carbonic acid gas from the walls of the 
stomach and intestines; aromatic herbs and teas may help, 
but the hot water alone is able to do the whole work. There 
is no other medicine that will cause downward peristalsis so 
effectively, promptly and injuriouslessly. Dry heat outside 
of the abdomen does good, but not as the hot water inter- 
nally. Again medicines given for specific actions are in- 
creased in force by administering with hot water. 

This is not all that hot water does. It washes down 
and out the stomach, the intestines, liver, pancreas, kidneys, 
skin; it thins the thickened blood so that its capillaries and 
veins (there is rarely much trouble with arteries) allow of 
healthy flow; all the glands secrete better with a plenty of 
hot water; it helps to dissolve calculi, gallstones, gravel of 
lungs, kidneys and bowels; (sometimes the calculous intes- 
tinal concretions are enormous in size) ; it paves the way 
for good digestion, assimilation and appropriation of food 
and thus gives the system more force to run it happily; it 
becomes a spiritual food, as the spirit cannot work in a body 



52 WATER 

all anaesthetized, hypnotized, if not paralyzed by the gases 
of the alimentary canal fermentation which are the bane of 
the nerves and cause troublesome dreams and hallucinations, 
stir up bad memories, put the sleeping spirit into a state of 
terrible unreal trouble; it gives a feeling of refreshment at 
once; leaves no trail behind; causes no abnormal appetite, 
nor takes away the senses, nor produces organic disease like 
alcohol in fatty degeneration; if habitually drank removes 
the desire for ice water in the hottest days in summer; in 
other words, it cools ; distilled, it should help to arrest the 
formation of tartar on teeth ; it warms cold extremities so 
that in reality it does what it is claimed that alcohol does for 
topers, warms in winter and cools in summer; it promotes 
normal sweating, an important thing for the twenty-five 
miles of sweat ducts in adult man; it has benefited man for 
ages — else why the general domestic use of decoctions. The 
uses of hot water as an outside application are many and vari- 
ous and its powers excel any medium in the materia medica ; 
for example, it has been found in nephritic colic that baths, as 
hot as could be borne, cause the cartilaginous ureter to 
soften and with the terrible powers of the secreting 
kidney epithelia to expand the goose quill tube so that 
the calculi * were passed into the bladder ; this after all 
the resources of anodyne and anaesthetics have been found 
to fail. 

Boiling Water 

Is that at 212° F. used in the preparation of food in cooking; 
while it is true that sometimes some races live on uncooked 
food, it is quite as true that the best type of men has to 
use cooking to soften and make digestible the animals 
and vegetables that are eaten. {See Changes in Food by 
Cooking.) 

* The size of a pea. 



WATER — SALT 53 

Water as a Chemical Substance 

Contains hydrogen and oxygen of its own chemical compo- 
sition and nitrogen and oxygen from the air in it. There are 
in water and the air it contains, enough to support life for 
some time, if said life force is carefully husbanded ; a Doc- 
tor Tanner was once noted in New York for living on air 
and water for forty days ; of course it depends upon the 
goodness of the food supplies found in the body that under- 
goes such fasting, cannibalizing itself ; dogs have starved in 
forty days fed on common flour preparations, while others 
lived as long on nothing but water. 

Summary 

Water is classed by our prologue as inorganic, mineral, 
spiritual, suited to all, physiological, chemical, structural, 
next to air as a life need, a food in disease, a food for head, 
nerves, heart, lungs, bones, teeth, hair, etc., used often, has 
to do with heat, natural, climatic, aesthetic. 

SALT 

Sodium Chloride, Nad: Inorganic (mineral kingdom) ; 
but present in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; also 
must be spiritual, as the body is not whole without it — good 
if used rightly — added to other foods in proper proportion 
is healthful — suits all parts of the body — is not a heat pro- 
ducer yet forceful as osmosis depends on it — climatic on sea 
and shore — natural — delightfully aesthetic to the taste of one 
deprived of normal salt in food — fashionable in all menus, 
written or unwritten. Dissolves readily — takes water from 
the air (hygroscopic) — has water of crystallization in it. 
Keeps the red corpuscles rounded out, distinct, separate ; if 
withdrawn, man would die from broken up red blood cor- 



54 SALT 

puscles. With nitrate of silver it has been found in every 
tissue, as the observer learned in Professor J. P. Cooke's 
laboratory at Harvard, in 1853-54, and is universally present 
in nature as shown by the need of using distilled water for 
nitrate of silver solutions. 

A saltless diet has been found destructive in schools of 
intellect ; some years ago a man advocated at Andover Phil- 
lips Academy and Theological Seminary that salt and animal 
foods were the bane of student life and showed how much 
money could be saved by leaving them out of the dietary ; a 
student returned home sick with typhoid fever who had 
followed this advice ; he nearly died ; while treating him the 
observer learned the cause of the epidemic to have been in 
the withdrawal of the meat and salt, thus allowing the ty- 
phoid poison full sway. This experience was enough and 
animal food and salt were put on the diet list again. 

Salt may become a harm if used too much ; this principle 
is seen in plant life. The admirable experiments of our 
Agricultural Experiment Stations and also common sense 
have shown that if plants are given an excess of manure they 
suffer, some being killed. Manure has been defined to be 
''soluble mineral plant food" and the good that is done by 
it, is not in the provision of chemical elements in their or- 
ganic parts, but in the various salts of nutrition they contain 
in such a condition, that they can be absorbed by the growing 
plant. In humans, salt in excess disturbs the processes of 
osmosis in the ultimate cells of which the body is composed, 
which are being laid down and taken up (transforma- 
tion or metabolism) all the time; when this process is re- 
tarded or impeded there comes fatty degeneration in said 
cells (English idea) ; the tissues are not nourished, they 
become brittle and let out the changed blood in hemorrhages, 
as are found in the well-known scurvy. 

Thirst indicates too great excess of salts in the system. 



SALT 5 5 

For example, one eating salt fish, corned beef or salt ham 
will experience a thirst for water, due to the presence of 
salt in excess in the system, disturbing painfully sometimes 
in calling attention to the physiological unbalance. 

The taste if not perverted is the right guide to eaters. 
During wars when salt has been cut off by the enemy, 
people have almost fought to obtain it; "salt licks'' show 
that wild animals instinctively seek it ; there is good reason 
for this. Twenty cattle were wintered with hay, feed and 
salt, while in the same barn were twenty other cattle on the 
same food, only saltless ; in the spring the first set came out 
in health, while the saltless lost nearly all their coats of 
hair; as hair needs mineral food to complete its chemical 
elements, salt is therefore good to prevent baldness. Salt 
should be added to other foods if not present already in 
sufficient quantity. 

Salt is an aesthetic in that it gives pleasure and satis- 
faction to eaters ; the shell heaps of the whole Atlantic coast 
of the United States evidence the gusto, with which the 
aborigines ate soft-shell clams ; one cannot conceive of a 
clam-bake being unbeautiful (unaesthetic). Why is the clam 
called festive? Why did the J900 National Convention of 
Undertakers have a clam-bake in the cemetery at Sharon, 
Mass., if not pleasurable, for of all men undertakers are 
most careful of their ethics, and what would clams be with- 
out the salt ! If this is not so, why are fresh-water clams not 
eaten as much as the salt? There is no menu without salt, 
for if not there separately it can be found in combination. 

Salt is a protective against intestinal parasites, worms, 
etc. A child who can use plenty is generally free from 
worms which otherwise lodge in the intestines because the 
host is sick. Salted meats are good when fresh meats are 
accompanied by diarrhoea ; salt in corned beef and ham makes 
such foods resist the fermentative vegetations in the alimen- 



56 SALT BEEF 

I 

tary canal better than the unsalted meat, and when a return 
is made to the saltless meats the latter are better digested, 
as the ferments have been starved out on the salted meat 
diet. 

Salt for ages has been regarded as an aliment of the 
highest value ; language testifies that salt was very precious 
when it w T as said of a man that he was not worth his salt. 
Christ, impressing his disciples with the idea that they were 
the best people, said not that they were the gems and gold of 
the world, but the salt. There are fine solid deposits of 
salt; specimens of same, clear as window glass, have been 
exhibited lately in the United States that came from Santo 
Domingo, where there is a mountain six miles long and three 
hundred feet high, made up of this beautiful transparent 
solid salt, deposited ages ago. 

The chlorine of the hydrochloric acid of the juice secreted 
by the gastric follicules is furnished by salt ; also the sodium 
of the triple phosphates and of the urates in the urine, of the 
glycocholate of soda in the bile, etc. 

BEEF 

The flesh of the slaughtered steer, cow or other adult 
bovine. Earle says it is curious to observe that the names of 
almost all animals as long as they are alive are Saxon, but 
when dressed and prepared for food become Norman ; the 
Saxon hind had the charge and labor of tending and feeding 
them, that they might appear on the table of his Norman 
lord; thus ox, steer, cow are Saxon, but beef Norman; calf 
is Saxon, but veal Norman ; sheep is Saxon, but mutton 
Norman. Bovines are also cattle, mentioned in Genesis, i. 
29 (b. c. 4004) and in the Bible 150 times. Oxen are men- 
tioned 136 times, so that beef goes back to the earliest 
history. 



BEEF 57 

Bovines from the tip of the horns to the end of 
the tail have a money value. It is no wonder that formerly 
they were regarded as a money property and even now in 
Africa we hear of wives being bought for so many oxen. 
The bovines are clean animals by the Levitical law and the 
flesh left over in the sin offerings was eaten by the priests 
for food (hence they were not vegetarians). 

It is interesting in this connection to see how beef 
was regarded in the sixteenth century in England. Cogan 
says of Biefe: "I need not show how plentiful it is through- 
out this land before all other countries and how necessary 
it is both by sea for the victualing of ships and by land 
for good housekeeping, in so much as that no man of honor 
or worship can be said to have good profession for hos- 
pitality unless there be good store of biefe in readiness ; 
and how well it doth agree with the nature of Englishmen, 
the common consent of our nation cloth sufficiently prove ; 
yea, that it bringeth more strong nourishment than other 
meats, may plainly be perceived by the difference of strength 
in those that commonly feed on biefe and those that are fed 
with other meats.'' A generation ago the English were 
called "Beef eaters" and their success on land and sea was 
laid to this. It has also been asserted that when England 
gives up beef, her prestige goes with it. Surely after such a 
record, as the above reading, for 6,000 years as some reckon 
time, beef must be considered a food. 

It is organic and inorganic: Take the loin average of 
analyses, the protein and fat are 38.4, ash .9. 

Animal kingdom: Yes. 

Mineral kingdom: Not exactly, though the. loin average 
analysis shows 60.7 per cent, of water and said loin without 
said water would be inedible ; the .9 ash is all of the mineral 
kingdom ; beef has a place technically in the mineral king- 
dom but not vernacularly. 



58 BEEF 

Mental kingdom: Beef belongs here because it fur- 
nishes all the elements necessary to sustain the spirits in 
a healthy condition. Go without food with severe exercise 
until the spirits flag and the world seems a poor place to 
live in ; then eat a good broiled beefsteak and see how long 
before you get through eating, the spirits rise, the world 
appears to be worth living in, the morbid feelings are dis- 
sipated and you are ready for all legitimate demands made 
upon your brain. 

Good: History has shown beef to be good and yet 
there are differences in the goodness as every one knows 
according to the cuts which our Government notes as fol- 
lows : 

(a) rump, (b) socket, (c) top sirloin, (d) small end 
sirloin, (e) 1st cut ribs, (f) 2d cut ribs, (g) 3d cut ribs, 
(h) 1st cut chuck ribs, (i) 26. cut chuck ribs, (j) 3d cut 
chuck ribs, (k) 1st cut neck, (1) 2d cut neck, (m) 3d cut 
neck, (n) leg (hind), (o) 2d cut round, (p) 1st cut round, 
(q) flank, (r) top of sirloin, (s) navel, (t) plate, (u) 
brisket, (v) cross ribs, (w) shin (fore-leg), (x) shoulder 
clod. Here are twenty-four varieties of cuts in the same 
animal, the best of which is the rump, provided it is tender 
and well freed from the tough white fibrous connective tis- 
sues ; the pure muscular fibre of beef is its most nutritious 
part, standing at the highest rank of the beef preparations. 
All the good things here said about beef are based on the 
pure red muscular fibre as obtained from the right kind 
of rump. 

To recapitulate the goodness of beef. 

a — Milk, an animal food, is the second natural food to 
the new-born babe, air being the first. 

b — When the teeth appear, beef juice and broiled beef 
pulp are the best foods. 



BEEF 59 

c — Beef-eating races have ever stood at the front, vege- 
table eaters taking the second place. 

d — Beef-eating nations do not present leprosy, as vege- 
table-eating nations do. 

e — Beef properly cooked, with water, can be lived on 
longer than any other solid food, animal or vegetable, and 
the normal health maintained. 

f — Beef is quickly and easily digested; the stomach is 
a lean meat digesting organ. 

g — Beef has cured grave chronic diseases, when vege- 
table food had brought them on. 

h — Beef confers more force and staying powers than 
any vegetable food. 

i — Beef is a Bible clean food, fed to Hebrew priests and 
Jews now. 

j — Beef will make bad blood good sometimes in forty- 
eight hours and less. 

Bones, hair, nails, teeth: The organic and inorganic 
elements are present in sufficient and assimilable quantities 
to make them perfect. Nothing in our civilization is more 
melancholy than the attempt to build up teeth on carbo- 
hydrates in excess. Hens fed at the sugar factories on 
refuse scraps, laid shell-less eggs with white yolks. The 
nails of a person who has been ill from typhoid fever will be 
found ridged and roughened three to six months after con- 
valescence, because of the lack of proper nutrition in said 
fever; this condition of nails is found in other diseases; 
the teeth also will be found ridged, roughened and decayed 
in cases of malnutrition, but not when fed on beef. If the 
hair follicles are fed with a perfect food like beef and the 
head well ventilated, causal vegetations which have so much 
to do with baldness will not grow in the epithelia of the 
scalp of hair bulbs. Those who have seen the lions and 



60 BEEF 

tigers in the New York Zoo, who, though captive, look 
healthy and strong, and fed on raw beef, must acknowledge 
that it is a good food for bones, hair, nails and teeth. 

Intestines: It does not make protruding abdomens, as 
vegetable feeding does, nor deposit whorls of semi-solid 
fat in the omenta; nor distend with gas as from fermenting 
vegetable food; nor develop fibrous tissues in the intestines 
and stomach by said gases. {See Fermentation.) 

Force: Dynamis; from the Greek — to be able; it is kin 
to dynamo, and might have been dynamo, but the senior 
writer thinks that the termination is dynamis, that in one 
sense means "pull." It is the word the Saviour used when 
he turned on the multitude and said, "who touched me, 
for I perceive that virtue (dynamis) has gone out of me." 
It is a word that, including this most celebrated case of 
healing power, means all the abilities that are combined in 
the physical nature of man and of the spiritual nature, so 
far as it depends on alimentation. Physical and mental 
manhood being maintained on beef longer than any other 
solid food, it is par excellence a dynamis food; if, as we 
have said before, it takes power to do the work of physio- 
logical life when the body machine is in fine running order, 
it stands to reason that it takes more power to run said body 
in sickness and disease, because of increased friction; if it 
takes power to heal in sickness and disease, then as beef 
not only has run bodies in health longer than any other 
solid food, has done the same when bodies have been ill 
and sick, and while doing this has furnished power enough 
besides to cure and heal in a certain percentage of cases, 
then beef must be wonderful dynamis food. Pugilists 
have much force ; beef is their main diet and they recover 
quickly from physical injuries. 

Morphology: The most important of beef tissues is the 



BEEF 6 I 

muscular fibre; the white and yellow fibrous tissues, the 
fat, the arteries, veins, capillaries, tendons, ligaments and 
bones are all secondary. The blood is used, but not much. 
Wild beasts that prey on bovines eat everything, save the 
larger bones. Muscular fibre is of two kinds, cross striped 
and unstriped, or voluntary and involuntary, made up of 
fibres which in turn are made of fibrillar ; the fibrillar of 
striped fibres are cylindrical or prismatic in man, 1-400 to 
1-200 of an inch long and 1-1500 to 1-1200 in breadth; 
longitudinal striae in straight or wavy paralleled directions, 
1 -12000 to 1-10000 inch apart characterize the voluntary 
fibrillse. Unstriped fibre is made up of contractile spindle 
shaped cells in bundles held together by a cement ; they are 
not especially noticeable here. The voluntary muscles are 
richly supplied with motor nerves whose final distribution 
is a mooted point with anatomists, but the motorial plates 
of Kuhne have received the support of some eminent author- 
ities. The great points for us are that said muscles act 
mainly from nerve influence, whether it is inside or outside, 
and to repeat, that the muscle fibres separated as far as 
possible, properly cooked and fed, do sustain human life 
longer than any other solid food. 

Heat: We quote from the valuable analyses of our Gov- 
ernment in part : Rump steak lean, average of analyses, 
heat 780, fat 11.6. Out of 32 concrete analyses of beef 
under the head of rump, the lowest was heat, 480, and fat 
2.9; the highest, heat 2145, fat 44.3. Reckoning heat as an 
element of goodness this puts beef better than it even is ; 
fat 44.3, with 2145 heat units, if lived on long will produce 
fatty degeneration. "Heat is life and cold is death," is the 
old maxim of the botanies who gave hot water, cayenne 
pepper, lobelia, etc. ; still people sometimes die of burns and 
sunstroke. 



62 BEEF 

Chemistry: Myosin is the albuminous or protein com- 
pound in the contractile muscular tissues, liquid during life 
but coagulated in death (rigor mortis). 

United States Government gives 774 analyses of beef. 
We quote a few : 

Lean rump as purchased, average of 2 analyses : refuse 
20.2, water 51.7, protein 15.7, fat 11.6, carbohydrates none, 
heat units 780, ash .8. Rump very fat: refuse 16.2, water 
33.7, protein 12.3, fat 37.2, carbohydrates none, ash .6, heat 
units 1800. 

Rump, all analyses: refuse 18.5, water 47.3, protein 14.4, 
fat 19, carbohydrates none, ash .8, heat units 1070. Roast 
beef canned, as purchased : refuse none, water 58.9, protein 
25, fat 14.8, carbohydrates none, ash 1.3, heat units 1090. 
Broiled chopped beef is not on the list, and this is to be 
regretted. Boiled beef: water 51.8, protein 28.4, fat 22.5, 
ash 1.3, heat units 1405. 

The great thing noticeable in these analyses is the almost 
complete absence of carbohydrates. We think if the white 
fascia aponeuroses and the white and yellow fibrous tissues 
were examined alone they would yield carbohydrates, as they 
are glue tissue. Beef practically analyzed by sole feeding 
shows that its chemical properties must include all that is 
needed to build up, sustain and maintain man's body tissues. 
Sole beef eaters go not get fat or obese, but there is fat 
enough to run the body without running into fatty ills which 
carry so many into their graves. The Government analyses 
lay great stress on heat units and draw comparisons with, 
foods of the vegetable kingdom, deciding in favor of the 
latter, entirely overlooking the fact that no other solid food 
sustains normal life as long as beef preparations. 

Climate: Beef is used most in temperate climes where it 
is of the best quality. In the frigid zones it is used as pem- 
mican, i.e., lean beef cut in strips, ground, mixed with fruit 



BEEF 63 

and compressed to smallest compass. (Nansen and his men 
lived for a time on walrus muscle and thrived on it.) There 
should be no difficulty in keeping frozen beef in the Arctic 
and Antarctic regions ; they are natural refrigerators. In 
the warm climates, beef is a good food if properly selected, 
rightly cared for and cooked. Further, it is of interest in 
the last few years to see that the dictum that American 
troops did not need plenty of beef has been disproved, for 
it is found that beef is needed in the tropics for nourishment 
as well as in the cold countries ; in Porto Rico the people 
living on the coast get beef and do not suffer from 
amoebic dysentery, while those inland who do not have 
beef suffer from said dysentery. Stanley, in his African 
travels with his men suffered from lack of beef and when 
they were able to get any kind of animal food were cured 
of various diseases. Cold storage is now a great success 
and makes sure good animal food wherever our navies sail. 
In the United States the best beef comes from the ranches 
in the West probably because the cattle are raised by the 
thousands and ten thousands by people who develop the 
cattle industry to its highest point. They must have good 
grazing and care. 

Condition of feeders: Those who are well and hearty 
can eat almost any part of the cuts of beef, save the bones. 
On the other hand, those who are sick or ailing need the 
tenderest cuts and some require the separation of the red 
muscular fibre from the fibrous tissues. Beef properly pre- 
pared is the food for all after the teeth are cut or in con- 
nection with the breast milk, ere suckling ceases. 

Manifold food: Generally and conventionally and is re- 
garded as the piece de resistance, for when it is left out 
it is surely missed. It is beef that redeems mince pies from 
obloquy because of its nourishing powers and double 
cooking. 



64 BEEF 

Natural food: Generally not much interfered with save in 
packing, salting and making extracts. 

It is said that the beef of the Hawaiian Islands is very 
good. Possibly this may be a source of supply in time to 
come. We hope it will, as in our opinion beef eating would 
do away with leprosy. Barbecues are another beef-eating 
custom. A whole ox is dressed and spitted and roasted over 
a fire of coals made in a pit or ditch. They are usually for 
political purposes. The junior writer has attended two 
"beefsteak dinners," at which an inordinate amount of beef 
has been eaten, with thin slices of bread and olives and celery 
as relishes ; beer and ale freely drank ; the disagreeable 
next morning effects of a conventional banquet were not 
experienced. 

* About twenty-five years ago, Dr. R. J. Nurm, of Savan- 
nah, Ga., proposed to a firm of chemists to grind beef bones 
into powder and use as food in cases of deficient bone 
growth. This was then approved by the senior writer. 

Aesthetics and fashions: We do not think that raw beef 
has aesthetic eminence ; we hear little of the beauty of a 
broiled beefsteak; still no great fashionable dinner is 
aesthetically perfect in the estimate of the bon-ton caterer 
without beef. For the multitude of things pleasant to the 
eye and palate that are crowded into the stomach at an 
aesthetic banquet are enough to kill people ; but with all 
possible latitude to expression, beef cannot be said to be an 
aesthetic, fashionably expressed. To be sure, to the hungry 
wearied by work out-of-doors there is nothing more beauti- 
ful in the line of food than a well-cooked beefsteak; a 
delightful aroma and a musical sizzling are the best kind 
of nasal palatal and appetizal harmony to him. This is 
true of other articles of food, for as has been said "hunger 
is the best sauce for a meal." 

Religion: No animal food figures more in the Bible than 



BEEF 65 

beef as cattle, 4004 b.c. and also as clean. In modern times, 
the Latin and Greek churches prohibit beef m Lent ; besides 
the Latins prohibit beef on Friday. The Buddhists are not 
allowed to kill any animal, bovine included. This seems to 
be a revival of Egyptian religion. It cannot be denied that 
the Israelites in the height of their prosperity revelled, re- 
ligiously speaking, on beef. 

Builder of tissues: Yes, for how could healthy man other- 
wise subsist on beef as sole solid food for years? As lean 
beef has no carbohydrates, and little or no fat, fatty acids are 
not in abundance in said beef eaters, but there is all the 
normal fat needed and its proper development. Taking 
advantage of the metabolism (Greek) or transformation 
(Latin) that is going on in the human system, by which, 
save the teeth and bones, the whole human body is renewed 
every seven months, lean beef will lay down healthy tissues 
and organs. 

Effect on skin: Good for reasons as stated in previous 
paragraphs. 

Diseased conditions: Good beef has none; some people 
are nauseated by beef, but not nearly so soon as by almost 
any other solid food. Beef long exclusively used some- 
times produces meat dyspepsia with sulphuretted and phos- 
phoretted hydrogen gases ; but it is very, very rare, and 
almost every other kind of flesh eaten exclusively will 
produce symptoms long before beef. Physicians have said 
that beef causes Bright's disease. One who said this was 
asked that if he ever knew a case of his own observation. He 
said "No." Reply was made to him that there was evidence 
of cases of Bright's disease (diagnosis based on oil in the 
blood specimen, coming from the fat underneath the skin, 
or in the white blood corpuscles and albumin, fatty epithelia 
and casts of kidney tubes in the urine) to have been cured 
by medication, hygiene and a diet for some months of beef 



X 



66 BEEF 

almost exclusively used and properly cooked, said cures 
being verified by the absence of abnormal stigmata in blood 
and urine and further in one instance at least, of the accept- 
ance by an insurance company which had previously rejected 
the case because of the evidence of Bright's disease. 

Kit Carson, the famous Rocky Mountain guide and scout 
and the cowboys of the Pampas of South America, lived and 
thrived indefinitely on beef and water. If the words of our 
friends the vegetarians were true, then Kit Carson and said 
cowboys ought to have been terribly diseased from the beef ; 
on the contrary, it has been said by eye-witnesses that they 
were such examples of endurance that it seemed that no 
exertion could kill them. 

Fermentation: Being without carbohydrates, lean beef 
does not ferment with the common saccharine alcohol and 
vinegar yeast, but gelatine or glue tissues in beef do fer- 
ment, as they are practically carbohydrates. These tissues 
abound in tough beef, hence will cause fermentation like 
that of sugar of the common ethylic alcohol and vinegar 
kind and make much physiological trouble. Beef muscle 
when it does ferment, has a different alcohol and vinegar; 
and if such fermentation was common like that of glue 
tissues or sugar, men could not live on it for years. (See 
chapter on Fermentation.) 

Badness: Some regard beef as very bad. Galen affirms 
that "Biefe maketh gross blood and endangereth melancholy, 
especially if it is much eaten by those of melancholy com- 
plexion in whom it breeds cankers, scabies, leprie, fevers, 
quarriane, and such like." Isaac Judeus agrees to this, and 
Seo Sal reckons beef among the kinds of foods unwhole- 
some for the sick ; but Cogan says that these authors err in 
making beef of all countries alike. Had they eaten English 
beef he thinks they would have judged otherwise or per- 
haps they meant old or very salt beef. Ccgan thinks that 



BEEF 6? 

beef is unwholesome for the sick and this is the conventional 
opinion to-day, that it is too hearty for the very sick; yet 
it is fed to the actually sick in typhoid and other fevers, in 
the early stages of convalescence and with ultimate ana 
quick recovery, not mentioning other diseases. At a New 
York sanatorium, where patients were fed on broiled beef 
from which the white fibrous tissue was separated, a large 
dog was fed on said white fibrous tissue refuse which pro- 
duced dysenteric discharges. Years ago the French Acade- 
my of Medicine fed dogs on gelatine and they died in forty 
days ; now gelatine is glue which is made mainly from the 
white fibrous tissues of beef ; as soups dissolve out the white 
fibrous tissue gelatine, they are not so nutritious as thought 
so far as the beef part is concerned. 

Beef may be bad from bad pasturage, keeping, sickness, 
and especially tapeworm. Cow beef is the poorest unless 
specially well fed. 

Producing tuberculosis: The milk of kine is charged 
with this. Allow it: Against this is set 100 cases of tuber- 
culosis reported to the Berlin 1890 International Medical 
Congress by the writers, in which the physical signs were 
strongly manifest, which were treated by broiled beef 
mainly and yet 40 per cent, were cured, and most of them 
of over ten years' standing; again, a few years ago milk 
furnished a New York Boys' Asylum was found to be 
tuberculous, but in said asylum there was not a case of 
tuberculosis ; there should have been if tubercular milk 
causes tuberculosis. We do not recommend diseased milk 
or any other diseased food. 

Diarrhoea: In the summer season we have found beef to 
renew a diarrhoea in an old case of chronic diarrhoea cured ; 
but as this stopped, when mildly salted beef or ham was 
employed, we are inclined to think that the beef was not 
properly kept ; beef tea largely used is one of the best rem- 



68 BEEF 

edies for constipation ; it will produce diarrhoea, but without 
the faintness and weakness of ordinary diarrhoea. Some- 
times the beef smells "cowey," as milk does sometimes. 
This is probably due to fungoid vegetation; but it is un- 
pleasant chiefly to the sense of smell ; properly cooked it 
would not harm. But the beef referred to in the above 
case was undergoing fatty degeneration. No else to be had. 
Parasites: Taenia solium or tapeworm is the most com- 
mon and well-known parasite in beef; is many yards long 
and has several segments; one end of said worm is knot 
like, is called the head, and is provided with four suckers 
(misnamed), as they have no opening; the worm is fed by 
osmosis. Besides there are hooks, very small and minute, 
which allow the worm's attachment to the intestines ; but 
this source of fear in patients is unnecessary, as they are often 
found curled up without any attachment to the intestines. 
The species are very numerous; most common in birds, 
next in mammals, poultry, sheep, rabbit, dog, hog, bovines, 
then in fish and least in reptiles. The ox specimen is cysti- 
cercus, cystic form of media canneliata; in the cat, echino- 
coccus ; in the dog and wolf, serrata ; in the hog, solium. 
The eggs are in the proximal end (and are very abundant, 
probably millions) ; are very beautiful and are laid enveloped 
in a capsule and adhere to the place where they are de- 
posited until swallowed by the temporary or intermediate 
host (ox) by being eaten in grass, hay or other food. They 
are developed in the ox into hooked embryos, which bore 
through the alimentary canal into the muscles, specially, or 
other tissues, eye, liver, etc., or into the arteries, by which 
they enter into the brain. The embryo then surrounds itself 
with a cyst or bladder of fluid and becomes a hydatid or 
bladder worm, once thought to be an independent worm, 
but now proved to be the larva of taenia. When in the 
muscles, they wait until their resting place is turned into beef 



BEEF 69 

and eaten by man and unless killed by cooking, may develop 
into tapeworm. Tapeworm larvae are found in the brain, 
liver and other organs of man, hence if cannibalism was the 
custom, no doubt man would develop more tapeworms than 
now; but as it is, man must get them through another 
animal, as the hog, sheep, poultry, ox, etc., so that practically 
the development of taenia requires two different animals. 
It is possible, also, that fowls are more infested with taenia 
than any other animal. Beef and pork having tapeworm are 
said to be "measley." There is no desire to minimize the 
dangers of having taenia from beef ; it must bear its share of 
responsibility ; hence we insist on not eating raw, rare, nor 
underdone beef, but having it fairly well done, so as to 
coagulate the albumin of the larval hydatids. Every taenia 
subject voids millions upon millions of eggs, so for one 
tapeworm developed in man, there must be billions of eggs 
lost. In town or city life the eggs of tapeworms from 
humans go into the sewers, for the most part out of the 
reach of man, unless the sewerage pollutes a source of 
water supply. Even then the fish scavengers, the fauna of 
all hydrant waters, might destroy the taenia eggs ; though 
possibly they may thus get into the fish as intermediate hosts 
and the fish communicate back to man. 

Intemperance: This is so if gluttony and gormandizing 
with beef is intemperance; but the gluttons and gormand- 
izers of beef are, from the evidence foregoing, healthy and 
must suffer from overloading and with overuse as with air 
and water — two other vitally indispensable foods. People 
about to perish from want of food have, when beef was 
given them, eaten to intemperance, but with little or no 
trouble. Other instances might be given. The sick have 
eaten of broiled chopped beef from one to three pounds 
daily with no ill effects ; therefore intemperance with beef 
does not cause the trouble that intemperance with other 



;o 



BEEF 



foods and liquors produce. Beef is also a remedy against 
alcoholic intemperance. 

Beef and uric acid: Dr. Haig says that beef contains uric 
acid that gets into the blood and is the cause of most of 
mankind's diseases and hence that beef is not to be eaten. 
We differ. If our colleges and universities made micro- 
scopy a requisition for admission, such words against beef 
would not be written, since Clinical Morphologies show that 
uric acid is very rarely found in the blood ; but other crystal- 
line or granular bodies are found very commonly in diseases 
as pointed out years ago. Oxalate of lime, cystine, triple 
phosphates, carbonate of lime, cholesterine, stelline, stel- 
lurine, uric acid, etc., were, when present in the blood not 
in solution, not only signs of the prerheumatic state, but of 
the rheumatic state; but Haig accuses uric acid in both as 
causal of diseases alone. Now, if this is so, how is the 

following case to be explained. Dr. , now dead, once 

said he had sciatica and suffered much ; he was told that the 
blood would show the cause. It did. 




The above is a cut of the cystin crystals found in his 
blood and the diagnosis was cystinic rheumatism. • His urine 
showed no uric acid, but it would have shown it by acidu- 



BEEF 71 

lating with nitric acid and letting it stand over night. 
(This was one of the teachings of the Harvard Medical 
Laboratory, 1853-54.) The clinical proofs were that in a 
day or two the cystine was gone from the blood and with it 
the sciatica; the means used were two quarts of hot water 
daily, lemon juice galore and broiled beefsteak. If our 
friend's argument was true, his blood should have been 
loaded with uric acid, to say nothing of the urine, because 
he ate beef. In our medical experience, which is individu- 
ally from twenty to fifty years, we have never known beef 
to produce abnormal uric acid in the blood or urine. We 
have given it liberally in our practice and with constant 
clinical study of the blood and urine; if beef is poisoned with 
uric acid surely we should have met with it, and in this 
experience we include the case of the senior writer, which 
has been studied daily for seven years. 

Haig says that uric acid in the blood is sometimes in a 
colloid condition and not crystalline ; starch not cooked is 
a colloid, but it has a form, shape and color distinguishable 
by the eye ; the writers have never seen uric acid as colloid 
and to repeat very rarely as crystalloid, indeed the presence 
of other crystals hereinbefore named is many times more 
frequent than of uric acid. (The most common colloid of 
the human body is seen in the feces of chronic diarrhoea.) 

Just here zve may ask hozv are salts deposited as crystals 
or granular form in the blood ? Fifty-three years ago the 
Harvard Medical Laboratory set the senior writer to work 
testing for soda and potash in any and everything he could 
find, the best test being in the crystallography ; solution 
would be made and a drop or two placed on a slide, set 
away and covered for the night to evaporate slowly. Next 
morning crystals would be found and their forms would tell 
the story of salts of potassium or sodium. At the time it 
seemed to be a small business to the student, but since trying 



72 BEEF 

to understand the physics as well as the physic of clinical 
medicine, there has been impressed that this law applies 
to the human body, to wit, salts held in solution are thrown 
down in solids when their menstrua are diminished. If the 
process is slow, crystals are formed; if it is quick, then 
granules or amorphous deposits appear; there is no reason 
why this law does not apply to the human body salts. Ap- 
ply it to uric acid and the other crystalline and granular 
salts found in the blood, i.e., if the blood has water enough, 
uric acid and the rest will be held in solution and will be 
excreted by the emunctories normally; if there is no water, 
that is, not enough to keep them in solution, then they will 
be deposited. All our patients are made to drink water 
enough to have the urine 1020 to 1015 specific gravity, as 
this is characteristic of a healthy babe's urine, nursing a 
healthy mother. The man with the cystinic rheumatism did 
this, though the lemon juice helped. (Parenthetically, lemon 
juice in some forms of rheumatism excites the disease and 
the diagnosis can only be accurately made by microscopical 
examination of the blood.) We think that if Dr. Haig had 
made his patients drink water enough, he would have found 
that the troubles he attributes to uric acid (?) in blood and 
urine would disappear. 

Beef extracts: Many of the commercial preparations 
suffer from an excess of glue tissues; in 1889, the. attention 
of the senior writer while in London was called to Bovril ; 
we have found it to stand morphological and clinical tests 
and can most unqualifiedly recommend to the profession the 
use of the Bovril preparations of Bovril, Ld., of Montreal, 
Canada. 

Morphology of abnormal beef fibre: The present tre- 
mendous interest in the condition of packing houses suggests 
that physicians can microscopically study local beef deliver- 
ies; normal beef fibres present a red color, little or no free 



BEEF 73 

oil, cross marks perfect, no fat and no buttery or amoeboid 
oil inside nor outside. 

Data culled from 50 examinations: 

(1) 1905, Feb. 11. From Jamaica Plain, Mass. Claim; 
good, sound healthy beef. Color pale, white as a sheet ; 
cross marks half obliterated ; finely granulated fat inside of 
fibres, but not excessive; fat looking like butter abundant 
outside. 

(2) 11905, April 19, New York City. Pale; cross 
marks good ; considerable fat in oval forms ; abundant oil 
globules ; substance of fibres finely granular. 

(3) Same date and place. Chopped beef. Pale; oily 
like butter ; substance finely granular with fat ; longitudinal 
markings — striae, plain. Not so good as (2). 

(4) Veal. Same. Very pale and bleached ; no cross 
marks ; striae faint ; fibres finely granular with minute 
masses of fat. 

(5) Same. Pork. Very pale; no cross marks; striae 
present; oil. 

(6) Mutton. Same. Pale transparent; not much fat 
nor oil globules. 

Note. 5 and 6 are introduced here as they were exam- 
ined with 2 and 3. Six was a surprise, as many oil globules 
are generally found. 

(8) 1905, April 27. Boston. Color, slight red; no 
cross marks present ; oil in interspaces between fibres ; fibres 
somewhat granular inside ; much better than the average 
Boston beef, but by no means a normal specimen. 

(9) 1905, April 25. Philadelphia, Pa. Claim, first- 
class beef killed in Philadelphia. Color pale ; plenty of 
oil like butter ; cross marks faint ; few granules of fat inside 
the fibres. April 27, 1905, second examination of the same 
specimen. Some oil ; some granular fat ; cross marks fair. 



74 BEEF 

This was not kept on ice. It came from cold storage. But 
it did not meet the standard as expected. 

(10) April 26, 1905. The Bronx. Hamburger. Color 
pale ; cross marks faint, as a rule ; buttery oil plenty ; free 
oil globules outside of fibres, that were finely granular inside. 

(12) May 5, 1905. Daphne, Ala. Color more red than 
the average ; cross marks large and plain ; little free oil ; 
some granules of fat in fibres. Came in fine condition 
through the mail. Good. This was a pleasant surprise. 

(13) May, 1905. Bennington, Vt. Color pale; cross 
marks plain; some free oil, not excessive; no granular fat 
in fibres. 

(15) May 5, 1905. Brooklyn. Color pale ; buttery oil, 
but not abundant; striae and cross marks. 

(16) Same as (15), another sample. Color, paler red; 
cross marks present ; oil globules abundant ; granular fat in- 
side fibres. 

(17) May 6, 1905. From Harwichport, Mass. Color 
pale as white paper ; striae marked ; some buttery fat but not 
as much as usual; granular internal fat slight. 

(18) May 10, 1905. Country beef from Middlefield, 
Conn. Color very pale ; no cross marks ; infinitesimal gran- 
ules in fibres ; not much free oil. 

(19) May 12, 1905. Somerville, N. J. Color pale; 
striae marked; some cross fibres; some buttery oils; fine 
granular matter in fibres. 

(21) May 18, 1905. New York. Rabbi or kosher beef. 
Color better ; cross marks distinct ; some striae ; slight oil ; 
no granular fat inside fibres. Should say this was much 
better than the average beef. 

(22) May 18, 1905. Brooklyn. Color paler than it 
ought to be ; cross marks all very fine ; striae marked ; gen- 
erally an absence of buttery fat ; no granules. Good beef. 

(23) May 18, 1905. Another specimen. Storage beef. 



BEEF 75 

Color distinct but not fully red ; little fat of both kinds ; cross 
fibres marked. 

(24) May 18, 1905. Tenderloin beef cooked rare and 
taken from the dining table. Color good; all fibres cross 
marked ; little or no fat nor oil. This is the nearest to the 
standard. 

(26) May 2.7, 1905. Kosher beef, fresh killed in 
Brooklyn. Good color with one inch objective, but was 
thought not quite up to the standard ; cross marks distinct ; 
some striae ; not much oil ; fine granular fat in fibres. 

(27) June 6, 1905. New York. With one inch ob- 
jective; color reddish; little oil; cross marks distinct; with 
one-quarter inch objective; some oil and buttery fat; gran- 
ules abundant; cross marks clear. 

(3°) J une 8, 1905. N. Y. department store. Color 
palish ; cross marked ; striae ; little oil ; some granular fat. 
Triple phosphate crystal, such as is found in urine ; mycelial 
filament of yeast very white and pale, probably foreign. 

(34) June 17, 1905. Porterhouse steak. New York. 
Muscular fibres, some pale and some reddish ; cross marks 
present; one-half of the field under the microscope was 
filled with oil in globes, globules, granules ; also ameboid 
and buttery. 

(35) J une x 7> I 9°5- "Best beef in Rutherford, N. J." 
Color pale ; some cross marks ; striae ; not much free oil ; 
some granular fat inside fibres. 

(37) June 22, 1905. By the politeness of Dr. Darling- 
ton, President New York City Board of Health. Chicago 
stock killed here. Specimen only a short time in the iced 
storehouse. Color fair; cross marks abundant; some striae; 
not much oil on fibres, though some of them were amoeboid ; 
granular fat inside fibres none. This firm deserves help. 
(J. Stern & Co.) 

(38) June 24, 1905. Examined after keeping away 



7^ BEEF 

from the cold storage. Color pale; striae somewhat in evi- 
dence ; cross marks less numerous ; globar oil large and 
small, abundant; granular fat everywhere present inside 
fibres. 

Note. — This goes to show that beef decomposes by fatty 
degeneration. The smell of this specimen was not bad, 
while the odor of some control beef kept in the open for 
two days by the side of (38) was almost unbearable. 

(39) Beef from Dr. Jordan, Boston Board of Health, 
kindly sent in response to a request for a sample to photo- 
graph as typical of good sound, wholesome beef. Exam- 
ined June 27, 1905, at once upon receipt. Color pale ; few 
cross marks; some striae present; some granular fat in the 
fibres; some oil globules, not many; ameboid forms plenty 
on the cover glass. Later examination : Color pale ; striae 
more abundant ; granular fat everywhere inside the fibres ; 
oil globules abundant but far less than in the average sample. 
Thanks rendered to these officials for their aid. 

(40) July 4, 1905. Plymouth, Mass. Hot weather. 
Color good ; cross marks generally present ; no striae ; some 
free oil globules ; none amoebic ; none granular ; sample 
stank; a good specimen considering the environment. 

(41) July 9, 1905. Alexandria, Minn. Came in good 
order, though slightly tainted. Color to the naked eye gray- 
ish red and slightly glazed. Color under the microscope 
palish red; cross marks good; striae none; no granular fat 
inside the fibres ; hardly any oil globules. Considering the 
distance sent and the season of the year, this is a remarkable 
showing. Again it proves that a deep scarlet red color of 
the meat to the naked eye is not always a sign of the tissues 
being free from fatty degeneration. This the writers have 
found out many times to his sorrow in his own kitchen and 
on his own table. 



BEEF JJ 

(42) July 12, 1905. U. S. Army Purveyor beef. Claim 
to be perfect in quality. Color pale; oil in globules very 
abundant; oil in granules inside the fibres very abundant; 
cross marks mostly absent; striae abundant. 

(43) July 7, 1905. Another sample like (42). Color 
to the naked eye grayish red ; under the microscope the best 
red the observer has seen for years ; cross marks universal ; 
striae and oil globules few; no granular fat ; smell good. 
Observation made at ten a.m. At one p.m. the same day, 
the sample having been kept away from storage, very fine 
fat granules were found pervading the fibres ; the other 
appearances being held. 

(45) July 22, 1905. Alexandria, Minn., grass fed and 
only four days in the cold storage. Color fair ; cross marks 
few ; striae present ; oil in globules ; not much fat inside 
fibres ; many crystals of triple phosphates ; fibres fused to- 
gether, some of them evidently doctored ; not much smell 
of decomposition; not so good as (41). 

(46) July 29, 1905. Another specimen from Minne- 
sota. Color to the eye grayish red ; under microscope fair ; 
cross marks plain ; some striae ; hardly any oil or fat in 
globules or granules. A good specimen. 

(47) August 3, 1905. Beef from Faneuil Hall Market, 
Boston. Color palish red ; cross marks few ; striae much 
abundant ; oil in globules and buttery shapes ; all fibres finely 
granular with minute granules of fat. 

(49) In this number are lumped examinations made 
for several years past, all of which may be summed up as 
undergoing fatty degeneration. 

(50) Date forgotten. Brockton, Mass., a patient said 
that his butcher furnished good, sound, wholesome, healthy 
beef. This he was assured of by the butcher himself , who 
was to be trusted, as he was a man of his word. 



?8 BEEF 

Knowing the informant to be entirely trustworthy, the 
senior writer gladly availed himself of this opportunity 
to obtain a normal specimen for study and use; he ar- 
ranged to have a four-pound roast sent from the said 
butcher. When it came it looked all right to the naked 
eye, but the microscope showed it to be of the color of 
butter ; to have no cross marks ; no striae even ; nothing but 
a fatty mass that had every appearance of common butter, 
so completely had the process of fatty degeneration gone on. 
When the writer and the butcher met, he would not yield 
an atom from his position and he died holding fast to the 
same contention, that it was good, sound, wholesome beef. 

Cooking of Beef 

Poor cooking makes beef bad. If it is raw, the beef is 
indigestible and also confers tapeworm ; while cooking co- 
agulates their albumin and renders them harmless. No 
doubt if we had been brought up to eat raw beef we could 
digest it and run the risk of the worms. Again, if the beef 
is overcooked, it is hard, leathery and the nutritive quali- 
ties are destroyed, making a double loss. The golden 
medium is in cooking just enough. It should be remem- 
bered that beef will cook more after it is served on hot 
plates (like baked loaves of bread after being taken from 
the fire), especially if chopped. 

Boiling, because it removes the soluble mineral portions 
(and beef can be boiled until all its goodness is gone) is 
the poorest method if the liquor is thrown away. 

Roasting is much better, especially if done before an 
open fire. 

Baking in a closed pan * with water is a form of steaming 
which is excellent. 

* Papin's digestor 1660 plan. 



BEEF 79 

Broiling on a grill with a wood charcoal fire is the best, 
because the beef is not overdone nor charred; there is a 
great advantage in the ventilation of broiling. 

Frying in a pan immersed in fat is bad, because of the 
want of ventilation and the temperature, being raised to 
that of boiling fat (400 deg. Fahr.), removes the water, 
making the beef tough and hard to digest and drying up 
the nutritive juices. 

Frying in a pan whose surface is covered with fat, 
so that the beef will not stick, and turning often, is a 
less objectionable form of frying, as the beef is not im- 
mersed in boiling fat.* 

Stewing in water and retaining the liquid, is a good 
method, especially in England, where the soft coal does not 
give a very good fire for broiling. 

First-class restaurants on land and sea use charcoal, 
and there is no reason why private families should not do 
likewise for broiling, as the market affords a good broiler 
for this purpose and a big bag of charcoal costs only ten 
cents ; or make a charcoal basket of old mosquito wire net- 
ting. For broilers use a wire toaster or double perforated 
sheet iron plate broiler smeared with fat, so that the steak 
will not adhere. Another method is to put the steak on a 
bed of live anthracite coals ; the steak is soon charred out- 
side, thus retaining the juices. When beef is very tough, 
twice cooking is excellent. Indeed, steak half cooked will 
keep in hot weather and when wanted the process may be 
completed with fine results. This is also done with fish 
admirably. 

Porterhouse Steak 

The sirloin and tenderloin combined. The tenderloin is 
more fat and less hearty, has less staying powers than the 

*A good fry is obtained when the pan is sprinkled with salt. Heat till the 
salt is slightly brown, then put in the steak, chopped or not, and let it cook 
in its own juices. Be careful not to have the fire too hot. 



80 BEEF 

sirloin (which in turn is inferior to the rump from large 
bovines four to six years old, stall fed, which, to repeat, is 
the ideal steak when freed from its white muscular fibre.) 
Porterhouse steak is a term arising according to the Stand- 
ard Dictionary from a New York eating house, but for years 
the senior writer has believed the name was derived from the 
owner and landlord of Porter's tavern (still extant in North 
Cambridge, Mass., which was always in its day famous 
for its steaks and a great place of resort for roadsters). The 
secret of a porterhouse steak is to have a good one and cook 
it over a wood charcoal fire; this temperature does not 
burn, nor char, but at the same time cooks tenderly and 
thoroughly. This is also done very well at present by the 
modern gas stove, broiling both sides of the steak at once. 

Broiled Chopped Beef 

This is the muscle pulp of the width of the top of the 
round of well conditioned bovines, killed at the age of four 
to six years, free as far as possible from the glue tissue, fat, 
cartilage, bone, etc. In preparing same, the hands should 
touch the muscle pulp as little as possible, as human animal 
heat changes its character; it can be separated slowly by 
chopping in a common wood-chopping tray, and detaching 
the pulp by scraping by those who have the strength and 
time; this is the best method. The modern machines are at 
fault, in that they cut up the muscle pulp and white fibrous 
tissues together with but little separation. Steaks cut through 
the center of the top of the round are the richest and best for 
this purpose. Broil over a charcoal or anthracite coal fire 
incandescent, or with gas, not too hot or too cool. It should 
be turned as often as it blazes, so as to cook not rare but 
fairly well done ; the outside to be a dark brown color and 
the inside reddish, but not raw. Serve on hot water plate ; 
season with pepper, salt, butter, as desired. 



r '* 



BEEF 8 1 

Hamburg Steak 

This is made of chopped beef with seasoning and cooked 
by frying. It includes all the glue tissue and is generally 
taken from the poorest and remnants of any beef cut. It is 
far inferior to broiled chopped beef. There is a Boston firm 
who make it from beef on bones of fine cattle and is worthy 
of use ; likewise so when the butcher cuts it from good beef. 

Roast Beef 

This, of course, includes fat, fascia and white fibrous tis- 
sues. It comes next to the broiled chopped beef. The 
roasting exhausts the nourishment somewhat; this must 
be from the escape of the soluble nutritious elements. 

The common method of roasting is in a stove oven and is 
really a baking process in some steam, as water is usually 
used in the baking pan and comes from the roast itself. 
But the closed baking pans are practically a kind of steaming 
and are much better for roast beef than the open, because the 
roast is not dried, charred nor burned and its best juices 
evaporated. 

Corned Beef 

Corned is derived from the Latin cornu (horn), refer- 
ring to horned cattle, and means beef preserved in pickle 
of strong brine of common salt, with sometimes saltpeter 
added. There are various degrees. When for ship use or 
export, it is excessively salted, so that sailors call it "salt 
junk," as it is almost stony hard. Liebig asserts that corned 
beef loses about seventeen per cent, of its soluble nutrition 
by the osmosis of salting. This present age varies the 
amount of salt used. Salt horse or junk is not so nourish- 
ing and palatable as pickled beef when only salt enough is 
used to keep it. It is wise therefore not to salt beef much 
beyond the point of preservation from decay. Recent years 



82 BEEF 

have shown an improvement in corning beef ; to four pounds 
of beef add one-third of a cup of salt^ put in cold water and 
gradually heat to slow boiling until done; the results are a 
retention of more than the ordinary nourishment of corned 
beef and a delicate flavor, tenderness and softness good for 
the digestive organs. Care should be taken that the process 
of boiling should be not much more than simmering; an- 
other advantage is that better cuts may be used than what 
the butcher corns; poor beef is not made any better by corn- 
ing. 

Chemistry: United States Government reports: Rump 
cornet! beef, refuse 6, water 54.5, protein 14.4, fat .22, ash 
3.1, heat units 1195. Corned rump canned, refuse nothing, 
water 56.3, protein 23.5, fat 18.7, ash 1.5, heat units 1225. 
(Razu rump, refuse 30.2, water 43.7, protein 14, fat 11.03, 
ash 8, heat units 735.) From the chemical standpoint, raw 
rump compared with corned beef, canned and not, has 24.2 
per cent, most refuse, the least water by about 11 and 13 
per cent., protein about the same as corned, and 9.5 less than 
the canned corned ; heat units a little less than one-half ; 
physiologically or chemically the most force according to 
our experience is in the broiled uncorned rump. A point in 
favor of mildly corned beef is that it does not ferment in the 
alimentary canal, like the poor beef in a community where 
diarrhoeal affections are rife. Sometimes canned beef is 
"cowey" in smell, but this beef was wrong to begin with. 
"Horse beef sold as such in Paris in 1862 and tested by 
the senior writer, is sometimes substituted. The testimony 
of a lady to the horse meat diet of the 1900 Pekin besieged 
diplomatic corps was that it was nutritious, despite the smell ; 
necessity made them eat what they could get; but these 
things are written for those who live on account of, not in 
spite of their environments. If we could eat the brine and 
the corned beef both, there would be little loss ; but this 



BEEF 83 

brine is of such a great specific gravity that it interferes with 
the normal osmosis of absorption. 

Tripe 

Chemistry: U. S. Government analysis: Maximum water 
91. 1, minimum water J2, protein 13.5, fat 1.8, carbohydrates 
.5, ash .3, heat units 325. Principally fibrin, albumin and 
water (Yoeman). These are the only analyses we find. 
Physically, tripe has shown merits as food, which was re- 
tained when no other food could be. Life can be sustained on 
tripe for ninety days. It is easily digested. Tripe comes 
from the ' 'clean ox"; the butcher prepares it by soaking in 
water and scraping; it is then boiled, or should be, to soft- 
ness; the cook should test for tenderness and boil longer if 
need be. It can be eaten broiled, stewed or otherwise, at 
least after the preliminary boiling. If cooked after the old 
Tremont House (Boston) method it is a most appetizing and 
digestible dish. Steaming is the best method. 

Morphology: In man the stomach is made up of longitu- 
dinal, circular and oblique muscular fibres of the involuntary 
kind, besides serous, mucous and areolar coats of the blood 
vessels and gastric glands. The bulk is a smooth muscular 
fibre and normally the fibrous tissue is not in large propor- 
tions ; but it may become thickened by carbohydrates and 
gluey foods in excess and if these are long continued, fibroids 
of the stomach are excited, which are sometimes called cancer 
and may indeed degenerate into cancer itself. Now in the 
bovine stomach which is used for tripe, the bulk is mainly 
muscular tissue, which sustains the wisdom of the sugges- 
tion that tripe is good food for those who like it. 

Dried Beef 

Chemistry : United States Government reports — Mexican 
sundry, average water 19.1, protein 47, fat 21.6, ash 12, heat 



84 BEEF 

units 1785. Dried and salted Uruguay, water 30.7, protein 
46, fat 5.6, ash 16.9, heat units 11 10. 

Dried, salted and smoked, average water 50.8, protein 
31.8, fat 6.8, carbohydrates 6, ash 10, heat units 890. This 
preparation is for hunters, explorers and travellers or where 
fresh meat is hard to get. 

Taking the chemist's view, the large amounts of protein, 
ash and heat units make this a first-class food. But the 
creosote, pyroligneous acid and salt (the preservative chem- 
icals) are physiological banes to digestion and assimilation. 

Such preparations are too tough and too chemically 
cooked, but can be used as a relish. 

Ox-Tail 

For well people, ox-tail soup is good, when cooked so as 
to separate the muscles from the bones and there is no sepa- 
ration of broth from the meat. It would answer for 
chronic disease in some cases. Such soups are a great im- 
provement on common soups, because the broth is kept with 
the meat ; usually they are very palatable. 

Beef Tongue 

This wonderful organ makes a delicious side dish at 
meals. United States Government analysis : First, refuse 
15. 1, water 53.9, protein 14.8, fat 15.3, ash 9, heat units 920; 
second, ground and canned, water 49.9, protein 21, fat 25.1, 
ash .4, heat units 1450 ; third, canned and whole, water 68.9, 
protein 16.2, fat 2.6, ash .4, heat units 420. 

According to this, No. 2 shows 21 protein and is the best, 
but it must be tested by the functions of digestion and assim- 
ilation, which according to our best knowledge it responds 
well to. 



BEEF 85 



Veal 



It was known and mentioned among the Romans. Galen 
says that veal is easily digested and nourishing. Cogan 
speaks of it as being used in England before 1589; says it 
is better roasted than boiled. (Sometimes vegetable pro- 
ducts are better when young and tender, as asparagus, let- 
tuce, string beans, and some are better when old and ripe 
like almost all fruits.) "Bob veal" removed from the cow 
after slaughter is not good, so that the almost general con- 
sensus puts veal as a bad or at least inferior food. The 
bleeding and starving of calves to make their meat white is 
everywhere condemned, save by those who make money by 
it. Veal is less digestible and nourishing than beef. 

Chemistry: The United States Government reports some 
155 analyses of different cuts of veal — Rump as purchased, 
refuse 30.2, water 43.7, protein 14, fat 11.3, ash .8, heat 
units 735. Beef rump averages : Refuse 18.5, water 47, pro- 
tein 14.4, fat 19, ash .8, heat units 1070. These comparisons 
make veal refuse 11.7 more, water 3.3 less, protein .4 less, 
fat J.J less, ash the same, heat units 335 less, so that on this 
showing veal is less nutritious than beef with more refuse 
and less everything else, save ash, which is the same. The 
best veal is that cooked in an oven over an oil stove, taking 
an hour. This is tender, juicy, palatable and digestible. 

Calves' feet and head: These are a good occasional dish 
and appetizing. 

Veal stands very high as a child of beef and of the same 
clean blood. Is subject to the same diseases, but has the 
same excellent qualities in a less degree. Where it is pos- 
sible to obtain pasturage and herders, it would seem more 
profitable to raise veal to beef. Ordinary farmers' calves are 
not profitable, as they consume the milk, so dairymen ruth- 
lessly deprive milch kine of their calves. The evidence of 



86 BEEF MUTTON AND LAMB 

cow memory and affection is so great that it is a question 
whether there is not a loss in separating mother and off- 
spring, as it is conventionally done. 



MUTTON AND LAMB 

From 4004 B.C. to now they have been eaten. Cogan 
(16th century) says that "in England mutton is used more 
than any other meat both in sickness and in health." They 
figure among the Roman writers and are mentioned in the 
Bible from Genesis to Revelation as clean and next to beef. 
Cogan says : "Mutton is so light and wholesome in digestion 
that it is seldom seen that a man hath taken harm by eating 
it raw." Most physicians have commended mutton, save 
Galen, but Cogan disproves Galen by English evidence. The 
United States Government puts it next to beef. 

Mental kingdom food, as proved by the long time that 
healthy human beings have lived on it solely. 

Good when clean, properly raised, and cooked. Sheep 
thrive best in mountainous regions where the air and water 
are good. Another good food quality indirectly is the wool 
of the sheep, whence mankind is clothed and protected. 
Count Rum ford and modern imitators have argued that 
wool next to the skin was the best. It is easy to see that 
woolless clothing would not protect the average multitude 
as woollen goods do, rendering less heat needed to run the 
body, warding off colds and other diseases that come from 
chilling the body surface and thereby making serious inroads 
on the constitutional and food forces of the body systemic. 
The wool oil or lanolin is a most excellent excipient for oint- 
ments. Spiritually, sheep and lamb are good food for meek- 
ness, submission, innocence, mildness and patience, which 
save force (otherwise lost by their opposites), and can be 
used to digest and assimilate the food. (A fit of passion will 



MUTTON AND LAMB 87 

arrest digestion, and this is one reason why the heart some- 
times stops in an outburst of anger.) 

Bad if abused and improperly cooked or served. These 
can be avoided, but mutton and lamb do not furnish power 
enough always to keep out fatty ills stigmata after they have 
been removed by beef. The badness of mutton is not very 
bad, else the New York Deaf and Dumb Institute could not 
have kept its four hundred inmates on beef and mutton as 
animal foods for nine years with one death only. The ten- 
dency of mutton not to subdue fatty ills should not be for- 
gotten b}' those over fifty years of age, who naturally come 
into the cycle of advanced age, retarded and impeded circu- 
lations and hence a predisposition to apoplexy, paralysis, 
senile gangrene, weak heart, Bright's disease, etc. 

Condition of feeders: To all under fifty years of age in 
health and sickness, save the fatty ills, mutton and lamb 
are adapted by their tenderness, cleanness and digestibility. 
It is also cheaper and thus is not barred by poverty. But the 
cattle of the United States constitute greater articles of 
value than sheep, as the latter are worth $170,109,743 
against $1,117,165,160 for beef; so we must conclude that 
Americans do not eat more mutton and lamb than "beef," 
notwithstanding their cheapness. 

Morphology: The texture of mutton and lamb is tenderer 
than that of beef, but the fat tissues are more in evidence. 
There is also a good deal of white fibrous connective tissues, 
especially on chops, which are hard to digest and make gela- 
tine. The muscular tissue of sheep is unusually tender, 
else man could not eat it raw and digest it. 

Chemistry: United States Government analyses are 
quoted as follows : Lamb hind quarter as purchased : 
refuse 15.7, water 51.3, protein 16., fat 16.1, ash .9, 
heat units 975. Lamb shoulder: refuse 20.8, water 41.3, 
protein 14., fat 23.6, ash .8, heat units 1130. Mutton 



88 MUTTON AND LAMB 

hind leg as purchased: refuse 16.8, water 56.1, protein 
15.9, fat 10.3, ash .9, heat units 730. Mutton hind 
quarter without tallow and kidney: average 9 analyses 
— refuse 16.7, water 45.4, protein 13.5, fat 23.5, ash .7, 
heat units 1245. Mutton canned and corned, as purchased: 
water 45.8, protein 20.1, fat 2.8, ash 1.2, heat units 490. 
Heart as purchased: average water 69.5, protein 17, fat 12.6, 
ash .9, heat units 845. No carbohydrates, save from the 
liver, which is a sugar-making organ. Fat percentages of 
mutton and lamb range from 95.8 per cent, kidney, to 2.6 
liver. »Fat percentages of beef ranges from tallow 88.9, to 
1.1 lean leg (marrow 92.8). Average of beef fat, highest 
46.8, lowest 3.3. Average of mutton and lamb, highest 73.9, 
lowest 8. Or mutton and lamb, according to these data, are 
more than twice as fat as beef in the lowest percentage. 
While as to the highest percentage beef is somewhat less 
than j of mutton. This explains, we think, why mutton 
does not work so well as beef in fatty ills and organic dis- 
eases ; but without regard to these data the fact that man 
can live solely on mutton and lamb in health next to beef is 
a good proof that the chemical elements are enough to sus- 
tain life regardless of the laboratory. 

Physiology: They are physiologically adapted to sustain 
the normal functions of human eaters, save as in the instance 
of fatty, fibroid and organic disease; the lean muscles are 
digested in the stomach, while the fat and glue tissues are 
digested in the intestines. 

Disease: Fat in excess produces first obesity; not a dis- 
ease, but predisposing to fatty degeneration diseases. So 
mutton with its excess of fat may, and no doubt does, 
sometimes produce fatty ills ; it does not often produce diar- 
rhoeas and does not have even so much difficulty with its 
glue tissues as beef, because they generally are more tender 
and digestible. New England mutton or lamb is more 



MUTTON AND LAMB 89 

or less tougher than that of Kentucky. Great Britain mut- 
ton is tender, sweet and good. Mutton cooks much better 
on old England soft coal than beef. Mutton, like beef, is 
best broiled over a charcoal grill that cooks without chai- 
ring, burning or drying, and is fairly well done. In our 
experience we have never seen a case of sickness from mut- 
ton except as noted above in fatty ills, nor known of a 
reported case in medical society or journal. This is not 
saying there may not be such. It simply shows that mutton 
is not, as a rule, with some exceptions, a pathological food 
to the healthy. 

Mutton is best when roasted, or if boiled it should be 
eaten with the broth, which to the palate, and afterwards, 
acts with all the phenomena of good nutrition. Lamb is 
more tender than mutton and very much better dietetically. 

Multiple food: It generally makes the piece of resistance 
of a meal. Not often is it eaten alone. It would be well 
to do so, as then, we think, the fat might be so assimilated 
as not to produce the tendency of return of the fatty ills. 
One food is easier digested than two foods, and so on. A 
bad food singly is not so bad as when eaten with manv 
others, because every superadded food takes so much more 
force for digestion. The average person does better to do 
one thing at a time and if human stomachs could do likewise 
human disease history would be less bad. 

Cures: If we can call beef the physician, we can call 
mutton the first assistant. Always when the sick man tires 
of beef, he can turn to mutton for a change. It does not 
need to be chopped. Steaks from the hind legs are the 
best. The chops are too fat. Leaving out the fatty ills 
cases, mutton might be tried when beef could not be had or 
where the beef was very poor and even in necessity that 
knows no law, mutton would be the best food to use if nG 
beef preparations could be had. Just as milk has been used 



go MUTTON AND LAMB 

in Bright's disease, not with the effect of removing the al- 
bumin, casts, and fatty epithelia, but with that of keeping 
comfortably alive. 

The head: Certainly good ; the deaf mutes could not have 
such a record of nine successive years and in that time have 
one pupil who, it is said by some, breaks the record of the 
wonderful Helen Keller. The easy digestion, tenderness 
and nutrition of mutton and lamb do not produce gases to 
paralyze, more or less, the head. 

Heart and muscle: Good, but not so hearty and hale as 
beef. The conventional idea of being too "hearty" for the 
sick is not so prevalent as it is in relation to beef. People 
are generally not so afraid to give lamb and mutton to the 
very sick as they are beef, Mutton does strengthen the 
heart and muscles of the well and sick next to beef, and this, 
whether it is done by toning up the nerves that supply force 
to the # said muscles or by endowing the muscular fibrillar 
direct. The only obj ection is the excess of fat ; such taking 
the place of muscle is a degeneration. It is more difficult to 
exclude fat from mutton than from beef, hence lean beef is 
better than mutton. The peculiar physical arrangement of 
the blood vessels of the heart (which in itself is a blood ves- 
sel), going down to a point and then more or less back- 
wards, makes it easy to retard or impede the blood supply of 
the heart tissues. Hence, if there is too much fat in said 
sheep food, the chances are that it will be deposited in excess 
on the heart or heart sac (pericardium), and by the side of 
the heart fibrillar, if said fat does not usurp the place of the 
muscular fibres ; the same thing may be said of the muscles 
elsewhere ; further, if the eater does not exercise, or puts 
dress ligatures about the limbs or body, enough to retard and 
impede the circulation, fatty ills will result. The same is 
true to a less extent as to fat beef and to a greater extent 
with food from the vegetable kingdom. 



JMUITUiN AJNJJ LAMb \)l 

Eyes, hair, teeth, nails, bones: Mutton and lamb are good 
for them all ; their mineral elements suffice. This is not say- 
ing that no disease of said organs occur among mutton eat- 
ers, but that there would be more if they did not have said 
sheep and lamb to eat. Distinguished oculists state that 
dyspepsia is a great cause of eye diseases. Dyspepsialess 
mutton and lamb ought to make them less. If diseases of 
the bones and their allied organs come from deficient min- 
eral foods (other things being equal), then mutton and lamb, 
that furnish said mineral elements in normal and assimilable 
amounts are foods for said organs. Possibly the excess of 
fat in sheep might disease the above organs because of their 
density and intricacy of structure. We have seen cases of 
too much marrow in bones, also fat in falling hair. Fatty 
ills are the bane of the eyes and a weakness of the constitu- 
tion, no matter how caused and give deficient, fragile and 
feeble nails ; so fat mutton is the rock to look out for on 
the charts of the sea of life when we are navigating to have 
good eyes, bones, hair, teeth and nails. 

Intestines: Mutton and lamb are well suited to them be- 
cause of their tenderness and not furnishing digestive prob- 
lems hard to solve. 

How often used: Can be lived on twice a day. 

Sole foods: Over 40 days at least. 

Heat units: Of the muscular parts of lamb and mutton 
655 is the lowest and 2090 the highest; fat of kidneys, 
4065. On the chemical side, mutton is one of the best of 
all foods. Beef heat units from loin trimmings 165 to 3965 
of marrow. It is found that marrow and kidney fat cannot 
be eaten enough to sustain life and that if they could they 
would induce obesity and fatty degeneration. 

Force: Certainly, as from its physiological history, next 
to the force of beef, which is accorded the highest place in 
the training of those to undergo great exertions. If there 



92 MUTTON AND LAMB 

was a way to remove the white fibrous tissues and fat, as 
is done in lean chopped beef, possibly mutton and lamb 
would be equal to beef. Sheep are best in mountain regions, 
where the people need much force to live. The fresh, pure 
air food furnishes a good deal, as is seen in the increase of 
force of a plain dweller living as a mountaineer. Generally 
men from the mountains are very stalwart and strong, if 
they feed on sheep; they also have goats (of the same ovine 
family) and game. We do not hear of mutton being salted 
or preserved like beef for the army and navy: it is cheaper 
and would be thus used if just as much strength producing, 
we think. In our native town there was a man who was 
called "Mutton" — who kept his family on mutton and lamb 
because cheaper. Such diet did not add to the respect of his 
townpeople and his appellation was a term of mild derision ; 
but he had force equal to his station, earning a competency, 
and in some few ideas he led public opinion with a good 
deal of energy, wit and reason. 

Climate: Temperate and cool climes are suitable. The 
thick wool forbids warm climes. 

Ethics and customs: They have figured and figure as one 
of the most important meats on the tables of the lowest and 
highest. Even public festivals of conquerors in war have 
been called "ovations," because, some say, of the sacrifice 
of ovines (sheep). 

Aesthetics and fashions: If the French are world leaders 
in this respect, for their use of mutton and lamb is largely 
in excess of all other meats, then these meats answer fully 
the requirements of palatal and bon ton standard of beauty. 
No nation excels the French in its cuisine of mutton and 
lamb. They are said to look with pity on the cooking of 
other nations as not coming up to their aesthetic tests of good 
looks and good taste. 

Religion: The Hebrews from 2347 b.c. to the Jews of to- 



MUTTON AND LAMB EGGS 93 

day have made close connection of these nouns; the 23d 
Psalm begins : "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth 
me beside the still waters;" all types for sheep husbandry, 
true not imaginary, and the finest figure of poetical imagina- 
tion, as fresh, bright and realistic to-day as when uttered 
more than 4000 years ago. The Latin and Greek churches 
forbid the use of lamb and mutton in Lent and on Fridays. 

Skin: Mutton and lamb are good skin foods. The use 
of lanolin has already been noted. Mutton tallow would 
make a good ointment base but for its solidity. In chronic 
eczematous disease not accompanied by fatty degeneration 
it would be well to live on lamb and mutton to starve it our 
by making its habitation strong enough to kill it. 

Fermentation: Lamb and mutton properly selected and 
prepared are not subject to fermentation in the alimentary 
canal. Of course they will decay with putrefactive destruc- 
tive fermentation after death if not rightly kept, like most 
other dead animal tissues, but these are not in our range of 
food, as they are out of common-sense limits. These foods 
usually digest and do not wait to ferment. 

Parasites: 1st, sheep bot, fly or larvae, infest the nose 
and frontal sinuses ; 2d, sheep louse or tick ; 3d, a mallopha- 
gus insect (Trichodectes sphaerocephalus) in the wool; 4th, 
sheep scab, which the United States Government is fight- 
ing with original measures and success ; 5th, measles or 
hydatids, larval forms of taenia or tapeworm. Cooking will 
destroy all these. 

Intemperance: Gluttony of lamb and mutton is prac- 
tically unknown. 

EGGS 

Hen's eggs are here taken as a type ; they are called a 
universal food, as they are eaten everywhere, specially in 



94 EGGS 

the South. Vegetarians who say they eat no animal food 
rank them with milk in their diet lists. Travellers use 
them because they are free from solid dirt and if fresh they 
are presumably free from aerial (gaseous) and liquid dirt. 

Natural and unnatural, as they are eaten raw, cooked 
and mixed with sugar, flour and almost every food, as 
cake, etc. 

Fashionable, as the elite include eggs in their food. 

Organic: Will burn and are formed inside the body. 

Kingdom, animal: It is impossible to see how they can 
be put in the vegetable kingdom, formed as they are. 

Good and bad, just like other things. About the first 
thing an eater does is to settle this question by the wonder- 
ful tests of the senses. 

Physiology: One of the best concentrated animal foods, 
good for head, heart, bones, teeth, hair, nails, etc. Fur- 
nish heat healthfully. Are force giving. Beautiful, as trie- 
colors of the whites and yolks have stood the test of the 
love of the aesthetic in food; indeed, bakers and confection- 
ers make livelihoods with the aid of eggs ; the wealth of 
eye food at banquets consists much in the lavish display of 
eggs as food material in custards, ice-cream, candies, cakes, 
etc. 

They furnish food for every tissue, solid and liquid 
(blood), save water. Man can live on eggs and water for 
some time and thrive, with exceptions given below. 

Disease: The yolks by difficult digestion cause the de- 
posit of cystin crystals in blood and urine, as shown by the 
microscope. The oily matters in the yolk will keep albumi- 
nuria a-going, zvhile the whites will help remove it, and 
are not so nutritious as the whites. 

Chemistry: Eggs contain all the elements needful for 
food, save water, and the combinations are such as to be 
easily digested, save exceptions given herewith. 



EGGS — FORK 95 

If well, eaters can use both yolks and whites ; if sick, 
they can eat the whites and recover tone, so that they can 
then eat other foods. It is understood that the whites 
should be cooked by dropping in boiling water and then al- 
lowed to moderately harden, or use them raw. 

(The whole body of the chick is produced from the 
whites, while the yolk is food during the first days after 
hatching. ) 

Eggs are mental food, as they furnish a healthy body for 
the mind to dwell in. Eggs badly cooked or overeaten will 
cause dreams. 

A remarkable change occurs in the thick liquid yolk by 
heat in cooking, say boiling, i.e., into beautiful yellow crys- 
tals ; the mealy condition of the yolk is due to this ; the 
usual physical change of liquids from heat is evaporation 
and condensation ; but it is thought to be rare in physics to 
have crystallization by heat, as cold and evaporation crystal- 
lize water and solutions of salts. Melted metals on cooling 
deposit crystals if the cooling goes on slowly. 

The white of egg becomes more solid on heating, but 
there is no crystallization so far observed. 

The formation of the complex salt cystin in the blood 
and urine, before noted, comes from the yolks, because of 
this tendency to crystallization and is a potent cause of one 
form of rheumatism. (See Beef and Uric Acid, illustra- 
tions.) 

PORK 

Is it food? Many consider it not fit to eat. In this 
case they are supported by the Bible when in 1490 B.C. swine 
were forbidden as unclean and their eating was among the 
most odious of the abominations charged upon the Hebrews, 
but under the new dispensation its eating is allowed. "Galen 
130 to 200 a.d. most commended swine's flesh above all 



g6 pork 

kinds of flesh in nourishment of the body, if it be not of 
old swine and well digested of him that eateth it and that 
it giveth more steadfast and strong nourishment than other 
meats be proveth by experience of great wrastlers, who if 
they ate a like quantity of any other meat and withal use 
like exercise shall feel themselves the next day following 
more weake than they were when they fed on pork" (Cogan). 
The experience of every mining region demonstrates that 
salt pork is the most nutritious and stimulating diet for 
miners, whose labors are the most exhausting in the world. 
(A. D. Richardson, Beyond the Miss.) 

A federal soldier who served in Virginia in the Civil 
War voluntarily stated that the soldiers got more staying 
strength from salt pork than any other army ration. . The 
cure of a case of double pleurisy and tuberculosis is a fur- 
ther evidence of the value of pork. (See Food in Chronic 
Disease.) 

Good: Pork which is fed on sour swill, garbage or filth 
is not good, for such produces tuberculosis in swine, so that 
here the question of goodness is one of feeding. In 1877 a 
packing establishment in Massachusetts where 300,000 hogs 
a year were killed was visited by the senior writer; there 
were more than a thousand swine from the West in a large 
pen lying down and taking their last breaths ; he was agree- 
ably surprised to find the hogs were the healthiest he had 
ever seen ; they had been fed out of doors on good, sound 
corn ; then he witnessed the slaughtering and dressing ; the 
viscera, lungs, liver and intestines were healthy; since then 
the senior writer has maintained that healthy pork was 
wholesome food. 

Bad: Pork is specially subject to tuberculosis, because 
the conventionally fed hog has to live on sour swill, i.e., food 
decaying with the alcoholic and specially vinegar fermenta- 
tions, exactly as a man when fed on such food, as sour bread 



pork 97 

or dough, may die of tuberculosis. {See Fermentation.) 
But because the heat of cooking thoroughly destroys the tu- 
bercular vegetations, we do not think that pork can convey 
tuberculosis to man, unless eaten raw. If it did the mortal- 
ity would be greater than it is. No doubt the germs of tu- 
berculosis invade all, for they have been found in healthy 
mouths, but constitutional vitality offers a very inhospitable 
nest and the vegetations therefore do not grow. 

Condition of eaters: Makes all the difference in the 
world; let those whose constitutions have been impaired by 
any cause eat said tubercular pork (which, of course, none 
advise), but which through carelessness, neglect, or greed 
will find its way to the tables of man, then we might expect 
bad results. Those who work out of doors in winter find 
sound pork to agree with them and give great sustenance 
and power. While pork is preferably eaten by the outdoor 
workers, still it must not be denied to the ill when beef can- 
not be had, but attention must be paid to the soundness of 
the pork to begin with. (Hogs do not choose to live in 
filth if they can help it. When their pens are departmented 
so that they have a clean place to sleep in they keep it clean 
and remarkably so under unfavorable environments. Most 
animals will care for cleanliness if they can.) Cogan thinks 
pork poor food for students with weak stomachs to be com- 
monly used, because of sedentary occupations. This is 
right. 

Morphology: Some think that the flavor of pork is so like 
that of man's flesh that some have eaten it in place of pork. 
Somewhere it is stated that the cannibalism of the Fiji Isl- 
ands was a modern invention clearly within the memory of 
persons living. Anatomy shows the inward parts of man 
are very much the same as those of swine. We have never 
cannibalized any but ourselves by starving, and so cannot 
speak authoritatively as to the taste of pork being like that 



98 PORK 

of man. The outside pork anatomy differs from man's. 
Hogs have fat like whale's blubber. Fat men on post- 
mortem examinations do not show a like arrangement. 

Chemistry : United States Government gives four pages 
of analyses of pork, from which we quote a few as follows : 

Lean ham as purchased: Refuse 42.4, water 35.7, protein 

10.7, fat 10,6, ash .6, heat units 645. Edible portion, aver- 
age: water 62.8, protein 18.5, fat 17.7, ash 1.0, heat units 
870. Smoked lean ham, edible portion, average : water 53.5, 
protein 20.7, fat 24.4, ash 5.8, heat units 141 5. 

Smoked fat ham, edible portion, average : water 25.5, pro- 
tein 15.4, fat 55.8, ash 3.3, heat units 2640. Bacon, smoked, 
lean, as. purchased : refuse 9.6, water 29.6, protein 14.9, fat 

40.8, ash 5.1, heat units 2000. Aries sausage, edible portion, 
as purchased : refuse 5.2, water 16.3, protein 23.6, fat 48, 
ash 6.9, heat units 2465. Sausage meat, as purchased : water 
46.2, protein 17.9, fat 32.5, ash 3.4, heat units 1705. Pork 
sausage, as purchased: refuse 12.6, water 49.5, protein 14.5, 
fat 21.6, ash 1.8, heat units 1500. 

Compare with good beef sausage: Water 59.6, protein 
17.8, fat 20.6, ash 2, heat units 1200. Twelve of the pork 
analyses give carbohydrates, while beef (10 pages of anal- 
yses) show 8 such present. Veal and mutton (5 pages of 
analyses) show 3 presences of carbohydrates. According to 
the chemical standard, pork is a good food, but not quite 
up to beef. 

Physiology: Ham (and moderately salted beef) are good 
food when the bowels are filled with yeasty conditions, as 
such do not ferment readily, hence offer less problem for the 
alcohol and vinegar yeasts. Pork should be put in the side 
dishes in this order. 

Disease: Opponents give a fearful list of diseases caused 
by pork, of which scrofula is the greatest ; but pork to cause 
havoc must have been badly diseased. Trichina and tape- 



pork 99 

worm come from measly pork, but if said pork had been 
thoroughly cooked they would not have propagated said 
parasites. 

Sole food: As beef and mutton are ranged at the far 
limit, it is safe to estimate the limit of pork to about 20 days, 
more or less. It would be well for the United States Gov- 
ernment to test this, as pork is an important part of the 
army's rations. 

Multiple food: Almost always people could make a meal 
on pork alone, but do not do it. 

Cure by feeding: As pork is a side dish, capable of sus- 
taining healthy life for perhaps 20 days' sole feeding, as 
beef is unlimited in its range for sole feeding, and as with 
beef alone it is often a hard fight for life in chronic dis- 
eases, we have not felt it right to prefer pork to normal 
beef. In cases of diarrhoea, where the beef, climate and local 
conditions were not normal, we have found smoked and 
salted ham to arrest said diarrhoea almost at once. Very 
salt food will not ferment nor digest well, but there is a 
happy medium to be obtained by soaking in water the salted 
ham, until a moderate amount of salting is to be had. 

Head and nerves: Good for them. Instances are on rec- 
ord where hydatids have been found in the brain which have 
come from pork trichina larvae, but this is due to improper 
cooking. 

Heart and muscle: Good pork helps the heart and mus- 
cles. Cogan's dictum as to English laborers before 1585 
thriving better on pork than on any other meat supports the 
idea that they were men of muscle, the heart specially. 
Other testimony here noted bears out this theory. 

Bone, eyes, teeth, nails, etc.: All these thrive on whole- 
some pork. 

Intestines: If wholesome and fed solely, pork is a good 
means to reduce enlarged, distended, thickened or dilated in- 



100 PORK 

testines, far ahead of any surgical means. Beef and mutton 
are better; those who live on such meats have rarely stric- 
tures of the intestines. 

Heat units: Government analyses give 3855 heat units 
of back fat, down to 295 of flank cut. The average heat 
units are higher than in beef, our standard so far. From the 
chemist's point of view, pork should stand highest, but the 
fat excessively used will produce fatty degeneration, obesity, 
etc., as noted in other lines of food. 

Force: Certainly, or it could not serve so well in the diet 
of laborers, soldiers, sailors and farmers. On many farms 
it is the great source of force to the husbandmen. Fresh 
pork is a favorite food for soldiers on the march; if in the 
Civil War there were any live hogs anywhere around, they 
would be cut in small pieces and roasted on bayonets at rail 
fence fires and all eaten up in the course of 20 minutes and 
give the soldiers staying power. 

Natural: Yes, for the most part save in sausages, smok 
ing, salting and packing. 

Climate: Suits all climates. Again it is a curious ethic, 
or custom, that makes pork the standard meat all through 
the south of the United States and South America ; perhaps 
it is because beef is so poor and dear and hogs so cheap. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: Found on the tables of the 
people who live to cultivate society. Perhaps roasted young 
pigs garnished with celery, beets, cress, carrots, etc., form 
one of the best conventional monuments of culinary art at 
a fashionable banquet to please first the eye and then the 
palate. 

Religion: Figures very largely in ancient religious his- 
tory. Forbidden in Leviticus 11 :y; called clean in Acts 10: 
15. The Hebrews held it in such detestation that they 
would not so much as pronounce its name. Eating pork 
was amongst the most odious of the idolatrous abominations. 



PORK IOI 

It is said that the Greeks and the Romans used to sacrifice a 
hog to Ceres at the beginning of the harvest and to Bacchus 
at the beginning of the vintage, as swine were hostile to 
the growing corn and loaded vineyard. In modern times, it 
is said that the famous insurrection in India against the 
British was excited in the predisposed condition by the use 
of lard in place of tallow to grease cartridges. "The En- 
cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge," from which some of 
these statements are culled, also says the hog delights in 
fetid mire, reposes in mud by choice and wallowing seems 
to constitute one of its greatest pleasures. Peter quotes the 
proverb, the sow that was washed is turned to her wallowing 
in the mire. The Latin church prohibits pork in Lent and 
on Fridays. Somewhere we have seen stated that hogs will 
not eat dirty food unless obliged to or starve. A raiser of 
hogs for thirty years in Virginia says that hogs will be 
as particular about the choice of their food as human beings, 
and also if possible keep themselves clean. (So observers 
differ.) 

Effect on skin: We have seen pork, eaten fresh, produce 
nettle rash or urticaria, but it generally passes off soon, is 
a mild affection and usually comes from overfeeding that 
disturbs the vicarious functions of the skin and alimentary 
canal. Fat pork moderately used, must give supplies to the 
sebaceous follicles of the skin and make them supple and 
soft. (Chinese women are said to eat rats for this pur- 
pose.) 

Fermentation: Sound well fed pork does not ferment 
very much; when excessively or unduly fat, it may be too 
much for the pancreatic and hepatic secretions and therefore 
ferments ; but fats are not easily fermentable as the carbo- 
hydrates are. 

Parasites: (a) Hog cholera (tuberculosis), not infective; 
(b) Swine plague, infective but scarcely distinguishable 



102 PORK — POULTRY 

from hog cholera; (c) Swine pox, varicella or chicken pox; 
(d) Trichina; (e) Tapeworm, measly pork, (see Beef — 
Parasites); (f) Scarlet fever or scarlatina; (g) Rubeola; 
(h) Roseola. A curious fact is that hogs will stand the 
bite of rattlesnakes and delight in rattlesnake diet. 

Intemperance: Hogs will not eat preparations in which 
is alcohol and get drunk. Man does not often indulge in 
the intemperate eating of pork, as he soon gets surfeited. 
Of course it is possible and urticaria may follow, but pork 
does not cause a strong craving. If pork fat is used intem- 
perately, ,we should look for nausea and vomiting that would 
stir all the powers to repulsion. 

Sausages 

are finely raw chopped pork, mixed with seasoning and put 
in the prepared entrails of other animals ; thus they keep 
a good while. For well people, when well cooked, they 
serve as occasional dishes. New England sausages are much 
fatter and harder to digest than those made in New York 
State; probably this is due to the mixing of beef with the 
latter. Wisconsin sausage is the best and when properly 
cooked is commended for use. They are good force pro- 
ducers. Allantoxicum is the poison of putrid sausage made 
of liver and blood, a preparation not allowed by us: 



POULTRY 

Hens, ducks, geese, turkeys: Have been used extensively 
by man as food for ages ; as many regard eggs as vegetable, 
it is needful to insist that poultry are in the animal kingdom. 

Good: When not diseased; all cannot live on poultry, but 
the average person will thrive for a time. 

Morphology: There are two kinds of meat, white and 



POULTRY 103 

dark; tests of the blood and urine of feeders show that the 
dark meat is better than the white. 

Sole food: The best example is the biblical, when the 
Jews in the wilderness fed on quail for one month and then 
it became loathsome. So far as our experience goes, the 
above time is shortened; further evidence solicited. 

Manifold food: Usually eaten with other foods and 
mingles well. 

Badness: Sometimes bad from disease, bad feeding and 
bad preparation. Poultry feed on all sorts of vermin and 
food unsuitable to man, and the custom of leaving the en- 
trails undrawn is specially dangerous ; ptomaine poisoning 
may occur; cooking minimizes the evils but not altogether. 
The junior writer some years ago had occasion to treat a 
severe case of ptomaine poisoning due to eating one club 
sandwich. We have also been taught that there are vege- 
tations in the white meat and not in the dark. Cooking helps 
to kill them ; but the example of Philadelphia should be fol- 
lowed everywhere, requiring all poultry to be drawn as soon 
as killed. (Hen oil is a peculiar substance. Aristol dis- 
solved in it and ether introduced into the rectum has been 
tasted in five minutes. .With such penetrative powers, if 
the fowl is diseased, the oil may make trouble.) Those who 
live largely on delicatessen poultry have their troubles. 

Cures: Does not cure disease by sole feeding ; instead, the 
oil, with the tendency to fermentation of the white meat, 
tends to throw albumen, casts and fatty epithelia into the 
urine in cases enfeebled by disease. 

Heart and muscles: Not equal to beef, wheat or whites 
of eggs. 

Eyes, hair, nails, teeth, bones: Fairly good. 

Intestines: Unless fermentation of white tissues, is a 
good food. 



104 POULTRY — FISH 

Force and heat: In the former not up to prime foods here 
noted ; heat abundant. 

Climate: Is food everywhere. 

Cooking: Roasting in closed Papin's pans or cooked in 
its juices; broiled; fricasseed; never should be eaten raw. 

Aesthetics: Highly fashionable ; the North American bird 
called turkey (erroneously thought to have come from Tur- 
key) is perhaps the best of all and its festive uses need no 
mention here. 

Religion: The Latin Church bars poultry on Fridays and 
certain other days; otherwise does not figure. 

Builder of tissues: Certainly. 

Parasites: (See same under Beef.) 

Intemperance: The case cited of the Jews was compul- 
sory. We know of no others. 



FISH 



We find fish in the Bible from the first chapter of Gen- 
esis 4004 B.C. to the New Testament a.d. 59, and in the 
markets and waters of the present day. All with scales and 
fins were esteemed food and much used by the Jews. "Of 
the deliciousness of the fish, held to be sacred of Egypt, all 
authors, ancient and modern, are agreed." The ancient 
Greeks and Romans ate fish as mentioned by Ovid (Cicero). 
Cogan, 1585, says fish "is no small part of our sustenance 
in the realm of England. The felicity of Great Britain 
for fish, Dr. Bond, a great traveller, witnesses in his diary, 
'that no nation under the sunne is better served with all 
manner of fish.' " The use of fish on fast days, Celsus con- 
firms by noting that there is less aliment in fish than in any 
other meat and Cogan agrees to this ; we do also, save as to 
the flesh of clams, swordfish and salmon. 



FISH I05 

Animal kingdom: As they breathe, by gills, air suspend- 
ed in the waters and give off carbonic acid gas. 

Mental kingdom: Certainly, as the mental powers have 
for ages allowed fish for seasons of increased spirituality. 
Our New England forefathers had a high type of spiritual- 
ity and thrived on shellfish. There is something peculiarly 
festive about soft clams. At a clambake, there is a great 
flow of animal spirits. 

Good: Certainly very wholesome with above antecedents, 
provided they are in good condition. Codfish and soft clams 
are the best. 

Bad: If improperly fed in waters of filth, sewage and dis- 
ease germs, or if improperly cooked. A late report makes 
the London Polyclinic say that fish is the cause of leprosy. 
But leprosy is found most in rice eating countries, more 
than in fish eating ; however, as fish is not so strong a food 
as beef, mutton and pork, we might expect leprosy to invade 
fish eaters on general principles, especially if it was salted, 
which impoverishes by extracting some soluble nutritive salts 
of the fish, but we are considering them as a whole. 

Condition of feeders: Are for the sick or well; we have 
seen the very ill use fish for food, as in a broth ; or soft or 
hard clams steamed and the juices used with profit. Once a 
patient who could not take anything else suggested, found 
most acceptable and nourishing a broth of fresh water perch. 
Raw oysters agree with almost everybody, save those in 
tuberculosis. 

Morphology: Fish as a rule are tenderer than other food. 
The bodies are more muscular in proportion than beef. The 
cavities and the viscera are smaller. The bones are not so 
strong as those of cattle ; more flexible and in some more 
numerous. The shad is a fine example of elastic boned fish 
formed in a continuous network, so that they are very agile 



106 FISH 

and supple. The swordfish has a reddish muscular body 
with a longitudinal central skeleton of bone, which is harder 
than that of most fish. There are fish with the bones inside, 
but there are fish with skeletons outside called shellfish, as 
the oyster, clam, lobster and other Crustacea. All fish re- 
quire less cooking than mammalia or cattle. A very pecu- 
liar thing about fishes is their scales, which under the micro- 
scope are beautiful and polarize light exquisitely; certain 
glands produce a secretion of a fishy odor which probably 
prevents the action of osmosis of waters. There is a glue 
from fish which has long been used as a delicate food (isin- 
glass), though it is doubtful if it is any more than a glue 
of the carbohydrate kind. Be this as it may, fish glue is far 
better cement than cattle glue. The anatomy of fish makes 
cooking by steam the better method. 

CHemistry: The United States Government has gone 
deeply into this. We have space only for a few quotations. 
Codfish, dressed, as purchased: refuse 29.91, water 58.5, 
protein 10.6, fat .2, ash .8, heat units 205. Cod, salt, as 
purchased: refuse 24.9, water 40.3, protein 16, fat .4, ash 
.18, heat units 315. On these grounds salted is better than 
fresh. But biologically it is not. Yellow perch, as pur- 
chased: refuse 62.7, water 30, protein 6.7, fat .2, ash .4, 
heat units 135. Perch in our experience is the best fresh 
water common fish for food. Brook trout: refuse 48.1, water 
40.4, protein 9.8, fat 1.1, ash .6, heat units 230. Salmon: 
refuse 39.2, water 39.4, protein 12.4, fat 8.1, ash .9, heat units 
570. The fat is large in amount and this fish is not suited for 
cases of fatty ills. Swordfish: no analysis; we regret this 
because it is a good force conferring food. Oysters in the 
shell as purchased, average of 34 examinations : refuse 81.4, 
water 16.1, protein 1.2, fat .2, ash 4.0, heat units 45. Clams: 
soft, average 4 examinations: refuse 41.9, water 49.9, pro- 
tein 5, fat .6, carbohydrates 1.1, ash 1.5, heat units 140, 



FISH 107 

Curiosities: The carbohydrates and small heat units ; on this 
account the chemists would not say they were good food, 
and yet we have known a meal of soft clams to stand by one 
for 24 hours better than beef. Quahogs: refuse 67.5, water 
28, protein 2.1, fat 1, carbohydrates 1.4, ash .9, heat units 
70. A very poor food in this showing, but the broth is very 
nourishing and the meat stands by you long, if not too 
tough ; will bring back fatty ills not permanently removed ; 
not equal to soft clams. Scallops: maximum, 2 specimens: 
water 72.8, protein 15.1, fat 3, carbohydrates 5.6, ash 1.5, 
heat units 385. Scallops are sweet and very nutritious ; they 
have 40 to 50 beautiful eyes. Only the adductor muscle is 
eaten. Green turtle: refuse 62.4, water 19.2, protein 14.4, 
fat 1, ash 3, heat units 85. We have found a snapping tur- 
tle to give a hearty meal. We thought it ought to because 
its heart, separated from its body, beat rhythmically for 24 
hours at least. The low number of heat units does not ex- 
plain the wonderful persistency of the autonomy of the heart. 

Physiology: The tenderness of fish as a rule makes them 
a good food to digest. The odors that come from a fish in 
frying are nasal music to a hungry sportsman, just in from 
a hard day's "fish" ; likewise the crackling of the fat. These 
affect his spirits, stir up his appetite and make him more 
anxious to have some fish palate music. Fish are thus a 
relish. 

We have known a patient who had been very ill of ty- 
phoid pneumonitis, languishing at the mountains during 
convalescence. She expressed a wish for a fish dinner, which 
was had at a famous Boston fish restaurant and served its 
purpose, for from that time the patient recovered her appe- 
tite for other food and was rapidly restored. A clambake is 
physiologically next to a barbecue. 

Disease: The deterioration of fish kept out of water by 
dying and decomposition is rapid. Stale fish have poisoned 



108 FISH 

people. The worst forms of nettle rash or urticaria come 
from eating shellfish too long kept or not. Tapeworms also 
come from fishes. Oysters sometimes have typhoid fever 
bacillus from sewage drainage. The quality of fish is varied 
by cooking or by heat that coagulates the albumin. Fish ex- 
cessively eaten will produce cystinic rheumatism. Cogan 
says that fish in the salt seas and running waters are much 
better than those bred in stagnant ponds and lakes. This 
would be expected, as waters in motion absorb more air and 
there is more life. 

Soft clams are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted 
hydrogen when bedded near stagnant water bogs. Market- 
able fish with these exceptions are not disease causing when 
properly kept. But all cannot eat clams. 

Sole food: We cannot tell exactly. They are put next to 
game in rank. As beef and mutton can be lived on much 
longer, we conclude that fish cannot be fed solely longer than 
40 days. 

Manifold food: As a rule in certain localities, it often 
forms the chief article of food at a meal, but rarely is fed 
alone. 

Cure by feeding: Fish, especially shellfish, are good to 
cure loss of appetite, malaise, dyspepsia. They are good 
as side dishes when a patient is tired of beef and mutton. 
Soft clams are especially good, as clam broth or also fried 
a la Young's Hotel, Boston. There are possibilities of cure 
of disease in the swordfish, which may, with soft clams, 
supplant codfish on the menu of strict diet cases, as both 
these exceed the latter as power conferers. Debauchees worn 
out by excesses go to the seashore to recuperate, and do so 
more quickly by eating soft clams than on anything else. 
We think that sole feeding on soft clams and swordfish 
for a change would be a fine diet for insane asylums. The 
conventional diet of people predisposes to insanity when the 



FISH IO9 

carbohydrates hold a high percentage. Chronic cases of 
disease ought to have food that has biological superiority 
as well as chemicai. Some fish are such foods. 

Head and nerve food: Some fish are and some are not. 
Fresh caught tautog do not give nerve force for the head. 
Soft clams and swordfish furnish it abundantly. Hard 
clams would, but are too tough. Salmon also furnishes some. 
Codfish does, but in a lesser degree. Fresh water perch fur- 
nishes it. Fresh, properly cooked lobsters, ditto. Nearly 
all other fish we have found not good nerve food. Eels are 
good if not too fat. Oysters, so much prized, are not a great 
nerve food, but it takes less nerve force to digest them than 
when cooked, unless done as we once saw them in a restau- 
rant ; this stew was prepared as follows : the liquid part was 
run up to a boil, then from the refrigerator were taken the 
solid oysters and immersed in the boiling liquid, which, of 
course, was cooled by the ice cold oysters ; after bringing to 
a boil they were served — a dish fit for a king. In this con- 
nection the nerve use of fish on fast days in the Latin and 
other churches for ages shows their officials believed and 
believe that fish are more nerve promoters of intellectual 
appreciation of spiritual truth than beef, mutton or pork, pos- 
sibly because fish rightly cooked is so digestible. But we 
have never seen any signs of great intellectuality among 
people who lived largely on fish. There are far better nerve 
foods than fish, save those named. 

Heart and muscle: The relishing flavor of fish must aid 
the nerve forces of the heart, as it does sometimes excite a 
desire for food, also having a stimulating effect upon the 
heart, whence the desire is strongly felt to become the par- 
taker of said food. Not but that this exciting odor is found 
with other foods, meats, etc., but that of fish penetrates 
longer distances in full action. Bulk by bulk, fish is less a 
muscle food than beef and more transient. Fish does not 



IIO FISH 

strengthen the heart muscles like whole wheat, except clams 
and swordfish. 

Eyes } hair, bone, teeth, nails: If wheat has of ash 1.6 per 
cent., if entire wheat flour has 1.2 per cent, (to name no 
more), and are standards for heart feeding, then soft clams 
with 1.2 of ash and round clams with .9 per cent, of ash 
must fill the bill also. Codfish varies in percentage of ash 
from .6 to 1.3 ash. Perch, white and yellow, varies from .4 
to 1.3 of ash; trout from .5 to 1.4 per cent, of ash; halibut 
.7 to 1.2 ash; smoked salt herrings, entrails gone, 7.4 to 
13.2. These are all good foods. We refer to the valuable 
reports of our Government for more of these interesting 
facts. 

Intestines: Generally fresh fish, being so digestible, agrees 
well with the intestines ; but salt and smoked fish are liable 
to disagree; the creosote and salt are good for fermentative 
conditions of the alimentary canal, but they must be mod- 
erately used. No doubt tapeworm occurs sometimes as we 
have seen them in fish, but cooking will prevent this by coag- 
ulation. Oysters are conventionally known to produce in the 
United States intestinal diseases during the months with no 
R in their names, and are noted for typhoid fever when in- 
fected. But clams are edible in the hottest of weather, due 
to the large amount of salines in their fluids. This is not 
wonderful, considering the power of assimilation of their 
shells from the lime of the sea. At any rate, this is a fine 
thing in favor of clams to be edible the whole year round and 
especially during the months when intestinal diseases are 
common. Clam broth is a fine medicine for ordinary diar- 
rhoea. Clams are best prepared by steaming. 

Heat units: These run low. Out of 59 analyses on one 
page of our Government report, 44 were less than 500 heat 
units, while salmon and mackerel were 1125 and 1025. Cav- 
iare has 1530, the highest. Salmon and mackerel are not a 



FISH 1 1 1 

good food in fatty ills. The highest heat units of clams, 
340 for round and 225 for long, are not at all in keeping with 
their biological value as food. 

Force: Save clams and swordfish, these correspond to 
those of poultry. Even the excellent codfish and halibut are 
not so full of force. We wish the staying powers of fish 
might be further investigated as a means of national wealth. 
From our experience we believe that soft clams, Mya arena- 
ria, ought to be protected like cattle and swine ; as it is now, 
they are being destroyed for want of protection, as experi- 
ments in clam farming in Massachusetts have shown. The 
product value was $1000 per acre. We have seen it stated 
at $1500; a greater sum by far than any other agriculture, 
dry or wet. There are, all along our coasts, desert places 
where clams could be raised. We are glad to encourage 
clam culture, because they are so valuable a force food — 
festive, salubrious, strong. The clam eggs are deposited in 
June and mature to marketable state in less than a year. 
The United States Government has done fine work for 
oysters and has brought to notice the use of the abundant 
forms of life called diatoms as food for them, a thing which 
is very pleasant to microscopists, who have made so many 
studies and photographs of said diatoms. Now let us have 
as good work done for clams. One reason we think for the 
sturdy citizenship of the New Englanders in the seventeenth 
century was their clam and mussel diet. 

Climate: Fish are found in all climes and are said to be 
especially found in the tropics, wherever there are waters for 
them, and are suited as food for any climate if used with 
common sense. 

Natural: Civilized man does not eat fish raw, save 
oysters, clams and other shellfish, unless necessity compels, 
as in shipwreck or starvation otherwise. Smoked and salted 
fish, as herring, codfish, etc., are eaten raw, but these are not 



112 FISH 

in their natural state. All other animals, fish included, eat 
fish raw, abdominal contents and all, apparently with im- 
punity. It is found by experience that the nearer to natural 
conditions of life, fish are cooked and eaten the better they 
are, as they deteriorate rapidly after death. Dry, jerked 
and picked, are changes of the natural fish to keep them. Of 
course the salting removes their nutritive salts, but ethics 
have not gone in to impoverish fish like wheat. It is well 
not to eat natural fish, with the exception noted, because 
of tape and other worms. Steaming, as in clambakes, is the 
best way to cook fish naturally and preserve all their nu- 
tritive qualities. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: Certainly they figure on the 
tables of the most recherche banquets. A large salmon 
cooked whole and garnished is a fine centerpiece of gastro- 
nomic beauty ; so of turbot, white fish, cusk, cod, etc. Fish 
also furnish beauties of palate music; their perfumes dis- 
pense a music of smell and when some fine string orchestra 
provides ear, music, the occasion blends into a symphony of 
the harmonies of the taste, the smell, the eye, ear and touch. 

Religion: Fish, of course, figures largely in the Bible; 
and the great Latin and Greek churches, to name no more, 
allow fish on fast days and in Lent for many generations. 
There is no doubt that fish by many religionists are deemed 
more suitable to maintain spirituality than beef, though 
lambs have been and are eaten at the feast of the Passover. 

Builders of tissue: Yes, but clams and oysters are es- 
pecially good. 

Skin: Good, save that some shellfish produce urticaria or 
nettle rash, because they disagree with the intestinal digest- 
ive powers ; we believe, however, the trouble lies with the 
unwholesomeness of the said fish for the most part ; still idio- 
syncrasies have something to do with it, according to 
the adage "one man's meat is another man's poison.'' The 



FISH 113 

tenacity of the glue tissues of the skin of fish ought to be 
good for man's skin. 

Fermentation: Save shellfish when taken from the water, 
they rapidly deteriorate. One hot summer day, the 
senior writer went mackerel fishing in Massachusetts Bay. 
In a short time there were caught more than half a barrel 
full of half sized mackerel. On reaching shore they were 
not fit for food ; spoiled by heat. Wholesome fish, fresh and 
properly cooked, are not very fermentable, as they usually 
digest well. Again, odious odors of fermenting fish will 
deter almost any one from eating. 

As a rule, with exceptions, fermenting and decayed fish 
are unhealthy; people may gradually acquire the habit of 
eating such and their systems become tolerant, as the Sty- 
rians tolerate arsenic and get fat and handsome with doses 
that would kill those who had not been used to such. 

Parasites: a, Clathrocystis rosea-persicina often found 
on salt codfish in hot weather, b, Fungus, saprolegnia 
ferax on salmon and other fishes, c, Fish killer, a large 
belostomid water-bug. d, Fish louse, a small crustacean, as 
a lemeid. e, Fishworm, i.e., tape in hydatid and mature 
stages. Also found in the sea water where clams live. 

Proper cooking destroys most of these parasites. De- 
cayed fish should not be eaten any more than decayed or 
rotten apples. 

Intemperance: There are no instances on record of a 
nation intemperate with fish, as the Israelites were with 
quail. At a clambake on the shore of Buzzards Bay, among 
the cottagers a few years ago, there was a great abundance 
of fish food eaten. Some expected sickness. There was 
none, because of the superior excellence of the steam salt 
cooking, thus furnishing light work for the digestive organs. 
We know very little intemperance from fish eating proper. 
Years ago in Massachusetts, when apprentices were in- 



114 FISH — COFFEE 

dentured, a clause was written that salmon should not be fed 
more than three times a week, as it was so plentiful. Now, 
a great many would be glad to have it once a month. 



COFFEE 

This is universally used at many or all meals, and conse- 
quently classed as a food. 

Fashionable even to the lowest orders of society who can 
buy it. 

Natural though not eaten raw. It has many varieties. A 
coffee broker lately visited had 1,000 little trays for testing 
different cargoes. An examination showed visible peculiar- 
ities by which the expert could name the large number of 
varieties even before subjection to roasting, grinding, hot 
infusion, that is with water, taste, smell. 

Does climate affect it? Very much, as the broker 
showed. It seemed as if climate affected coffee as much as 
it does man in coloring the races. And the climate also 
makes a difference in the effect of coffee on the system, 
which demands it most in temperate climes. 

Vegetable kingdom: It grows on a bush that burns (or- 
ganic) ; as it is never used waterless, it therefore combines 
with the mineral kingdom. The virtues of hot water are 
given over to "coffee" sometimes. 

Condition of eaters: Some cannot use it. The Rev. Peter 
Kimball, of Perth Amboy, was over ninety years of age at 
his death. When thirty years old he found that coffee and 
tea kept him awake nights. He had not used either since and 
thought his longevity was partly due to his abstinence. He 
was a fine specimen of an almost centenarian; no doubt his 
regular nightly sleep lengthened his life and he was wise 
in not using what did not suit him, like horses, dogs, and 
cats who will not eat what does not agree with them. There 



COFFEE 115 

are others who have used coffee to like age. In the strictest 
plans of diet, almost always it is allowed and patients can 
generally take it, which is saying a great deal. Of course 
we mean that coffee which has stood the tests of brokers. 
Again coffee could not be used as it is, were it not good for 
the majority. 

Mam food: Generally used in combination with others. 
A young man said he was in the habit of drinking coffee for 
his midday meal ; eating nothing else. His head was so much 
disturbed that he sought advice, which was to stop such cof- 
fee taking. It cannot be lived on alone, as will be seen 
further on. 

Digestible: Yes, as food in solution generally is. 

Physiology: It is a nerve stimulant; furnishes force, 
bringing out the potential energies already there, either of 
the constitution or in food supply ; answers well as refresh- 
ment for firemen at conflagrations and soldiers on a march. 
It exhilarates and the drinker feels refreshed. Absorption, 
governed by the solar plexus of nerves, puts it at once into 
the blood and it is conveyed over the body with warmth, and 
by dilution, or evacuation of stomachic and intestinal gases 
promotes the welfare. Hot water also does this ; but coffee 
does add something, specially if the volatile oil is there to 
give an appetizing odor that is most grateful to the thirsty 
and tired recipient. Its effects are speedily felt in the brain, 
which is ready to go ahead just the same as if the stomach 
had had solid and substantial food. Coffee does certainly 
bridge or tide over emergencies and is valuable for this ; 
but is not like the New York elevated roads — all bridge. 

Disease: Disturbance of nerves in the brain, making it 
feel as if the system coffeeized was the same as fortified by 
food ; giving head disturbance enough to cause application 
for medical relief (as above to name no more). It is some- 



Il6 COFFEE 

what anaesthetic, numbing the feelings to cold. In some it 
causes insomnia; in others the heart to beat more or less 
violently and altering the heart sounds. The statements 
made by manufacturers of substitute coffee are that the gen- 
uine is a dangerous food; allowance must be made for the 
pecuniary interest in the matter. There is no reason why 
one should not roast and grind their own wheat and barley 
coffee and save their money for other uses. 

Relation to sugar and liver: The sugar should be 
charged with the liver disturbances and not the coffee.' (See 
Sugar.) Those sick of chronic ills, who have to deny their 
appetites, experience a conversion of taste easily. It is also 
often seen amongst the moderately well, who, finding they 
use too much sugar, stop it in the coffee, and soon like the 
sugarless more than the sugared. 

Milk and coffee: For the well, milk is harmless, though 
there may be something about the drinker that prevents 
(idiosyncrasy) ; but for most of the sick, milk clogs the 
liver and produces biliousness. There is a good deal of 
sugar in milk, also fat. There are fatty epithelia cells in the 
liver, so that using milk may be like carrying coals to New- 
castle. (See. Milk.) 

The best ways to make coffee: Have it pure, burnt, and 
ground while hot and immediately put in air-tight receptacles 
which are common in kitchens ; then having coffee pot hot, 
prepare it on the table by pouring hot scalding water on to 
the coffee in a bag. We know of no substance in the ma- 
teria medica that will make more quickly an infusion or 
tincture than coffee by this mode of displacement. A simpler 
method is by using a common pitcher and spreading a cheese 
cloth bag over the top. The decoction of coffee made by 
simple contact with the boiling water at the bottom of pot 
results in boiling the volatile oil (which is the delight of 



COFFEE 117 

coffee), and leaves an infusion of tannic acid that blackens 
the coffee like ink if boiled too long. 

Metal coffee pots would never leak but from the dis- 
solving of the solder and the tin and iron in common coffee 
pots ; thus the metals of the pot have gone into the drinkers, 
which could be avoided by using crockery pots or pitchers. 

Bone, teeth, hair and nails: Has not elements enough to 
make such. 

Mental kingdom: Not as a builder, but rather as a nerve 
tonic and stimulant. No doubt when nerve force is potentially 
present, coffee brings it out ; therefore useful as whip. But 
if no nerve force, no response. 

Coffee tasting and coffee brokers: One we know of had 
to give it up, as he showed evidence of nervous prostration. 

Those who doubt the effects of coffee should leave it 
alone and try hot water instead, whose nerve power is shown 
in its action on the human body amply by personal use. 
People with whom hot water disagrees are rare. 

Chemistry: Not so good, as it does not have enough 
elements to make tissues, and it is doubtful if it is good in 
heat given powers, for the hot water is responsible for the 
latter. Its active principle is caffein, much like thein in tea, 
and both act as medicines for the nerves. 

Tannin is not found in raw coffee, according to Payer; 
but Cheney reports tannin in the roast. Caffeol: an oily mat- 
ter formed in roasted coffee, C8, H16, O2 (Standard Dic- 
tionary) ; its natural percentage in coffee is 6.697 (Payen). 
Caffein, active principle, N4, C8, Hio, O2 (Standard Dic- 
tionary) ; this is a large percentage of nitrogen, and coffee 
may be deemed a nitrogenous food, as the United States 
Pharmacopoeia says "notwithstanding its large proportion 
of nitrogen, caffein does not putrify, even when its solution 
is kept for some time in a warm place" (Standard Diction- 



I l8 COFFEE TEA 

ary). We do not regard nitrogen as a forceless, negative 
thing, as conventionally taught, so long as dynamite and over 
five hundred other explosives, as listed in the Standard Dic- 
tionary, depend on nitrogen, in themselves or in* the air, for 
their explosive properties. It is possible that nitrogen is 
supplied in coffee as food; for as affirmed, nitrogen is a 
potential power as to nerve centers. 

The leaves of coffee have been used like tea. Dr. Stern- 
house found caffein in larger proportions than in the bean, 
also caffeic acid (Standard Dictionary). Here is a chance 
for commerce. 

Climate: Coffee has been used from time immemorial in 
Persia, Arabia and Turke}'. In 13 17 it went to France and 
England. 

Recapitulation: Coffee will often remove oppression of 
spirits, antagonize the power of alcohol and opium and act 
as a cordial. If too much used, causes a depression equal to 
the proceeding excitement, destroys the gastric tone, pro- 
ducing dyspepsia and neurosis (Standard Dictionary). All 
the world, excepting Persia, Arabia and Turkey, apparently 
got on until 13 17 without it. 

TEA 

This is food, because of the large amount of. salts and 
nitrogen in them, which equals caffein, N4, C8, Hio, O2. 

Mental kingdom, as it affects the nerves. 

Good, when used properly. 

Chemistry: Thein is its active principle. It has also 
17.80 per cent, of tannin, 0.79 per cent, of volatile oil, 0.43 
per cent, of thein, 5.56 per cent, of salts. 

Tissue builder: Hardly, as it has no elements to make 
tissues, teeth, hair, etc. 



TEA 119 

Physiology: Astringent from the tannin, while the thein, 
volatile oil and extractives exercise a decided influence on 
the nerves ; the volatile oil with the rest comforts and* exhil- 
arates. Used moderately in health it is perfectly harmless. 

Disease: Taken long and excessively, it harms the brain 
and stomach, producing neurosis and dyspepsia ; it does not 
affect the heart as much as coffee ; there are great differ- 
ences in the bad effect of the different varieties ; for ex- 
ample, green tea (made so by chemistry) is sometimes so 
productive of wakefulness and stomach distress that some 
cannot use it ; black tea comes next, while English breakfast 
and Ceylon tea produce practically no ill effects. It is said 
that the best teas are kept in China, Japan and Ceylon, and 
that the great mass of Americans do not know what good 
tea is. 

Tannin injurious: Not necessarily, as tannin and animal 
tissues agree and combine together to make a very lasting 
compound as leather; probably no organic chemical sub- 
stance is more extensively and harmlessly used in connection 
with tissues than tannin. It is not a poison, and the only 
inconvenience from excessive doses is obstinate constipation 
from arrested downward peristalsis. We have heard of a 
stomach being tanned by tea topers, but it has not been 
proved. The skin has been seen to undergo a sort of tanning 
from outward application of tannin, but the live stomach 
has not furnished this evidence. To show how tannin agrees 
with the tissues, it may be said that it has been injected into 
the sacs of ruptures, narrowing the ring of outlet by making 
bunches that gave no pain or trouble, and serving as plugs to 
prevent successful rupture. But people would be better off 
not to drink astringents against the warning of the palate 
and at the demand of an abnormal appetite. 

Sole food: Not known. 



120 TEA — COCOA OR CHOCOLATE 

Sugar and milk are much used in tea, but tea does not 
clog the liver and put bile into the urine as coffee, sugar and 
milk do. 

Seriously sick people on diet may use tea, if they get the 
right kind and leave out the sugar and milk. 

Head: Better than coffee. 

Heart: Does not stimulate like coffee. 

Heat: Hard to say, as hot water is in large excess in it. 

Climate: Used in all climates and universally by civilized 
man who can get it. 

Digestible: When used with common sense. 

Condition of consumers: It varies. Some cannot take it. 
Man can get along without it. 

Force: Yes, from the four equivalents of nitrogen in 
thein and the mineral salts of phosphates. 

Tea leaves have been eaten like cabbage leaves or celery, 
only by mistake. 

The best way to make tea: That used in Vienna with the 
Russian Caravan tea: a good sized teapot (crockery fortu- 
nately always used on account of tannin) is heated by hot 
water, which is then poured off; a teaspoon or tablespoon 
full of said tea put into the pot, which is filled with boiling 
water, allowed to steep for a short time and then brought 
on the table. Caravan tea keeps its properties better than 
tea by ship. 

COCOA OR CHOCOLATE 

These can be used as a substitute for coffee and tea and 
differ from the latter in the presence of fat acids and cocoa 
butter. The active principle is theobromine, said to contain 
a larger quantity of nitrogen than caffein. Unsuitable for 
those ill in fatty degeneration, and in such cases the shells 
of the chocolate nuts may be used. Were it not for the fat 



COCOA OR CHOCOLATE 121 

and use in milk, the excess of nitrogen would make such 
better than coffee. In the treatment of disease have caused 
albuminuria. 

Chocolate is made from the roasted and ground large 
nutritive seeds of theobroma cocoa, of the cola nut family 
Sterculiacese, in the form of a paste or cake mixed with 
sugar and some flavoring ingredients. Here it also means 
the beverage made from the cake with boiling water or milk. 
The chocolate nuts are an American tropical product, and 
said to have come from Mexico. 

Shells is the beverage made from the shells of the choco- 
late nut. 

Cocoa is the beverage made from the dried and powdered 
seed kernels of the cocoa tree, which by the removal of a 
part of the cocoa butter is rendered more digestible than 
chocolate. 

Broma is the beverage made of the dry cocoa seeds, from 
which the oil has been expressed. 

Good: When properly used. 

Bad: Because of the large amount of fat acids, com- 
monly known as cocoa butter, which does not agree with 
those afflicted with fatty ills of any kind ; with this exception, 
the chocolate preparations are not so deleterious as coffee 
or tea, when abused. 

Condition of feeders: Should be well and hearty, though 
some convalescents and valetudinarians use chocolate, spe- 
cially the shells and broma, with advantage. 

Morphology: The grounds of a cup of chocolate show 
much oil, some starch and shapeless masses of substance, 
which give with iodin the reaction of starch and polarize 
light; the little milk present does not account for the large 
amount of free oil. 

Chemistry: United States Government analyses: Choco- 



122 COCOA OR CHOCOLATE 

late, water 10.3, protein 12.5, fat 47.1, carbohydrates 26.8, 
ash 3.3, heat units 2720. Cocoa, water 4.6, protein 21.6, fat 
28.9, carbohydrates 37.7, ash y.2, heat units 2320. Wood 
and Bache state that the chocolate nuts contain albumin, bit- 
ter extractive and a large quantity of fixed oil called cocoa 
butter. Brands calls the oil, cocin and acid, cocinic acid, 
since found to be made up of caproic, coprylic and pichuric 
acid. Workesenky found in the seeds, theobromin, allied to 
caffein ; formula C7, H8, N4, O2, which gives a larger per 
cent, of nitrogen than is found in caflein or thein. 

Physiology: Chocolate is a mild, unctuous, demulcent 
agreeable tonic to the stomach and is considered nutritious 
where fats do not disagree. 

Disease: Its fats help the diseases of fatty degeneration 
in their pre- and established stages. Otherwise we find 
nothing. Does not cause insomnia, like tea or coffee. 

Sole food: Probably only a short time. 

Cures: Used for dyspepsia and as a substitute for coffee 
in mild acute disease and in chronic ills uncomplicated with 
fatty degeneration. 

Head: The capric, caprylic and caproic fat acids, also 
found in butter, which is, other things being equal, a good 
head food, make the chocolate seeds take a like place. The 
theobromin with its large per cent, of nitrogen is another 
good qualification. These, added to the fact that it does 
not cause insomnia, commend chocolate for head work; if 
the taker is tending to, or in, fatty degeneration, then broma. 

Heart and muscles: Save the oil, nitrogen makes choco- 
late a good muscle food. 

Bones, eyes, hair and teeth: The mineral matters in 
chocolate commend it sugarless for these. 

Intestines: Parr says that if chocolate is uneasy to the 
stomach a cup of cold water drank will afford relief. But 



COCOA OR CHOCOLATE 1 23 

the intestines are not much disturbed by chocolate as a rule. 
Its astringence helps to sweeten the bowels. 

Heat units: 2320. These come from the fats and carbo- 
hydrates in such excess ; few foods have a higher heat ratio. 
And yet it does not warm more than coffee or hot water. 

Force: The large amount of nitrogen should make choco- 
late a dynamic food; but in use coffee has the preference. 
This may be habit. 

Climate: Belongs to the tropics and used in all climes. 

Medical: Here the interference of custom to remove the 
fats in a measure is beneficial, as the excess of fat makes it 
more difficult to digest. 

Fashionable: Specially in candy, where it is combined 
with an excess of sugar. 

Builder of tissues: To a certain extent; the fat in mod- 
eration goes to supply normal fat, and the ash, mineral 
elements. 

Skin: Cocoa butter is a most excellent emollient; its 
flavor is agreeable; it dissolves at body temperature, does 
not grease the clothes ; affords great relief to such eruptive 
diseases as scarlet fever and helps to protect the internal 
organs from the setting in of the eruptions. 

Fermentation: Does not rapidly, because of the fat and 
oil and the large amount of the mineral salts. 

Parasites: We find none. 1 

Intemperance: Not much, except in the form of candy, 
and in this considerable. 

Preparation of chocolate: In the United States and Great 
Britain, generally when pure, the nuts alone are roasted, 
deprived of their shell, ground between heated stones to a 
paste and moulded into oblong cakes. Rice and other flours, 
butter and lard are used sometimes to adulterate. In Eu- 
rope, sugar, spices, cinnamon are usually incorporated. 



124 



COCOA OR CHOCOLATE 



Vanilla is also used in France, Spain and South America; 
Spain also adds cloves and capsicum. In Mexico, chocolate 
is mixed with indian corn, a few seeds of rocon and a little 
vermilion. 



Vegetable Kingdom Foods Analyses; 1,000 Parts 

Fresh or Air-Dry Substances; From "How Crops 

Grow/' 1905. According to Prof. E. von 

Wolff, 1889. 





« 

w 

H 

< 

831 
933 
143 
145 
150 
880 
goo 
890 
850 
904 
825 
956 
830 
767 
940 
144 
888 
130 
143 
860 

793 
143 
831 
838 
75o 
933 
870 

M3 
143 
9°3 
920 

143 
144 


w 



« 

0.6 

3-2 

16.0 
16.0 

39 -° 
1.8 
3-o 
2.4 
2.2 
4.0 

1.6 
i-7 

4-3 

16.0 
4-7 

17.6 
2.7 
5-4 

35-8 
0.6 

3-4 
1.9 
2.1 

17.6 

4.9 

1.8 

20.5 

20.8 


X 
< 

2.2 

S-o 
22.3 
17.0 
27.4 
9.1 
9.6 
15.6 

3.2 

8.0 

3-9 

5-8 

8.8 

19.7 

8.1 

12.4 

10. 

36-5 
26.7 

7-4 
10. 

2 3-4 
3-3 
2.9 

9-5 
4.9 

7-5 
18.0 
17.9 
16.0 

6.4 
18.3 
16.8 


S 
55 

CO 

< 


Ph 

0.8 
1.2 
4-7 
2.8 
12. 1 
4.8 
4-3 
5-8 
3-o 
3-6 
2.0 
2.4 
5 
7-7 
3-7 
3-7 
5-i 
5-9 
4.8 

2.5 
5-4 
10. 1 
1.8 
i.7 
5-8 
1.6 

3-5 
6.2 

5-8 
2.7 
• •9 
5-6 
5- 2 


S 

S 


CO 

0.6 
0.9 

0.5 
0.7 
0.4 

1.5 
0.8 

1.5 

1.7 

0.5 

O.I 

0.6 

O.I 

0.4 
0.8 

O.I 

0.2 
2.0 
0.4 
0.2 
0.2 
0.2 
0.3 

0.3 
1.0 

0.4 
0.3 
0.3 

5-7 
0.6 
0.3 
o-3 


S 

U 

J 
< 

U 

0.1 

0.6 
0.6 

O.I 

i-5 
o-3 
1.2 
2.8 
0.9 
o-5 
o-3 
0.4 
1.0 
2.0 
0.5 
o-3 
0.1 
7.0 
1.0 
1.6 
i.i 
11 
o-3 
o-3 
o-3 
0.7 
0.9 

0.5 
1.9 
0.7 
0.5 
0.5 


< 

(A 

M 
2 
O 
< 

0.2 
0.2 
2.0 

2.1 
2.1 
O.4 
0.4 
O.6 
O.4 

0.3 
0.2 
0.2 
O.4 
O.4 
0.2 
1-9 
0.3 

3-7 
1.9 

o.3 
0.6 

1-9 
0.2 
0.2 

0.5 
0.2 

0.3 
2.2 
2.0 
1.0 
0.2 
2.2 
2.0 


Q 
u 

< 

u 

2 



X 

.\i 

CO 


X 
H. 

°-3 
0.9 
7.8 
5-6 
9-7 
0.8 
1.1 
1.4 
1 .1 
1.6 
0.6 
1.2 
1.4 
2.0 
•0.7 
5-7 
3-4 
14.6 
6.8 

x-3 

1.9 
8.4 
0.5 
0.4 
1.6 
0.5 
1.1 
9.2 

8.5 
1.6 
0.8 
9.0 


Q 
u 

< 

u 
5 

X 

a 

D 

en 

O.I 

o-3 
0.4 

0.5 
1 .1 

c-3 
i-3 
2.4 
o-5 
1.0 
0.2 
0.4 

0.5 

4.9 

o-3 
0.1 

0.4 

1.8 

o-5 
0.4 
o-5 
0.8 
02 
0.1 
0.6 

o-3 
0.7 

0.2 
1.1 

0.7 
0.2 


<: 

H 
u 

c/5 

O.I 

0.5 

5.8 

4.9 

0.2 

0.2 

O.I 
O.I 

0.2 

0.3 

0.4 

0.5 
0.3 

i-5 
i-3 
°-3 

O.I 

0.9 

10.5 

0.7 

0.2 


w 

5 

j 
as 
u 


Apple, entire fruit 






"•3 




0.2 


Winter Barley 






°-3 


Beets 


0.0 


Cabbage H eart 


0.5 


Cabbage Loose Outer Leaves 


1-3 




0.4 


Cauliflower Heart 


0.3 


Cherry, entire fruit 


O.I 




0.4 




O.I 




0.3 


Maize 


0.4 

0.2 


Mushrooms, Edible 


O.T 




o.a 




0.^ 




0.2 




0.4 


Pea 


0.2I0.4 




O.I 

0.1 
0.2 

0.1 

0.2 

0.3 
0.7 

0.1 

0.3 

o-3 








Potato 


0.3 




o.s 




o.«» 




O.I 




1.0 




o-1 




O.I 




7.9 0.1 


O.I 











CANE SUGAR 



125 



CANE SUGAR 



Is it food? Usage and chemical composition (C12, H22, 
On) make it so. 

Kinds of sugar (Standard Dictionary). 



Name and Group: 

1. Arabinose. 

2. Dambose. 

3. Dextrose, glucose and 
grape sugar. 

4. Eucalyn. 

5. Galactose. 

6. Inosite. 

7. Lactose. 

8. Levulose. 

9. Maltose. 
10. Meligitose. 
n. Melitose. 

12. Mycose. 

13. Saccharose, sucrose. 

14. Scyllite. 

15. Sorbin. 

16. Synanthrose. 

17. Trehalose. 



Source and other name: 

Gum Arabic. 

Dambonite, gaboon India 

rubber. 
Vegetables, honey. 

Melitose, manna gum tree. 

Milk sugar. 

Flesh, heart muscle sugar. 

Milk sugar. 

Fruit sugar. 

Malt sugar. 

Larch manna. 

Australian manna. 

Fungi as of ergot sugar. 

Sugar cane, beet, etc. 

Fish, etc. 

Mountain ash berries. 

Dahlia and other tubers. 

Trehala manna. 



Saccharose group: 7, 9, 10, n, 13, 16, 17; Glucose 
group: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15 ; Unclasscd: 12. 

Saccharose: Any one of the sweet group of carbohy- 
drates, including the above, viz., C12, H22, On, polarizing 
light to the right. 

Glucose: Sweets with the formula C6, FI12, 06, regard- 
ed as aldehydes of saturated alcohol, C6, Hi 4, 06. 

Aldehydes: Ethylic alcohol dehydrogenized. 



126 CANE SUGAR 

Ethylic alcohol: Alcohol from grain, maize, etc., and the 
hydrated oxide of ethyl, C2, H5, OH. 

Ether: Oxide of ethyl; C2, H5, O. 

Ethyl: A monatomic uninsulated organic radical of the 
paraffine (C2, H5) series. 

What does this chemical nomenclature show? That 
sugars are related closely to alcohol, paraffin and fats, also 
carbohydrates. 

Glucose in man: Found in the blood, liver (the liver is 
a sugar making organ) and urine; but abnormal when 
present in the last named, producing the disease diabetes 
mellitus. 

Sugars found in the human organism normally: Glucose, 
inosite, lactose. 

Sugar is then a collective term for substances found in 
the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 

Mineral: No, unless you call carbohydrates mineral. 

Organic: As it burns and is found only in organisms. 

Beautiful: In the highest degree, as man is pleased with 
the palatal beauties of sugar, specially the saccharose or cane 
sugar, because it is sweeter than grape sugar or glucose. 

Fashionable: In banquets intended to display all the art 
of the caterer in every direction, sugar and its preparations 
make the chief pieces of resistance. 

Does it make tissues? No. These three elements can- 
not make fifteen or more found in the normal tissues of 
man, no matter how good their combinations may taste. 

Physiology: It is digestible in normal amounts because 
soluble. Its use is to furnish heat, its calories being very 
many; when taken as saccharose, the liver changes it into 
glucose, then it is burnt up in the lungs ; it is thought by some 
to give force, and it is said that (1900) the British and Ger- 
man army have been furnished with a sugar ration as an 
emergency food. Chemists endorse sugar as a physiolog- 



CANE SUGAR t2? 

ical food and also the French nation, who say that all food 
that tastes good (sweet) and looks good is a good food. 
The senior writer did not find it so in Paris in 1889 and ate 
with children in order to get rid of the artistic productions 
of the French cuisine. Parents sometimes feed children on 
candy until it is loathed to cure them of the habit. "Hast 
thou found honey, eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest 
thou be filled therewith and vomited." 

Force: According to the above authorities it furnishes 
some, but not according to our experience and that of 
others; in 1900 we find that the United States soldiers in 
the tropics are fed with beef, rather than with sugar. {See 
Beef — Climate.) 

Climate: It is used in all climates when it can be had, 
more in the tropics than elsewhere. 

Children's food: Decidedly, but wrongly, according to 
custom and inclination ; the youngest babe likes sugar. 
Confectioners thrive on children's love of sugar ; but we 
have known a six-months-old babe who ate a lemon with 
as much avidity as any babe ever ate sugar. 

Candy: An allotropic form of sugar. It is like wrought 
iron as compared with cast iron. Sugar is commonly in 
crystals ; in candy the crystals have been drawn into fibres 
as in puddling ore, but chemically candy is sugar.* 

Sole food: We know not, but wish some of its advocates 
would try it. It is almost always used as a multiple food, 
and it would seem as if the art of cookery and confectionery 
was more prolific in the combinations of sugar with other 
things than any other article of food save water. People, 
not cooks, sugar food of many kinds ; even vinegar pickles 



* A patient in tuberculosis who, told not to eat sugar, was accused of doing 
it because the consumptive morphologies of blood and sputum showed a return 
when they had begun to depart; she denied it but said she had eaten candy, 
not knowing it was sugar. 



128 CANE SUGAR 

may be often sweetened. That the natural taste of food 
should be mingled with sugar is a question. 

Glucose is made in the mouth from starchy foods acted 
on by the juices from the salivary glands. 

Proper cooking changes starch into sugar: A down 
town restaurant (Smith & McNeil's) has furnished to its 
guests examples. This is the ne plus ultra of cookery, but 
it is not always done, and, as said before, the liver and pan- 
creatic and salivary secretions have to do this. 

Yeast changes starch into sugar: Here is the advantage 
of leavened bread over unleavened — easier to digest. More 
of this in bread. 

Brain food: We think not beyond the heat furnished. 

Heart: Not good. 

Hair } nails, teeth, bone: As it has no fluorine, lime nor 
other mineral elements from which such are made, sugar 
is n<5t sufficient. 

Cure: It is used very extensively as a vehicle for medi- 
cines, also to disguise the taste of medicines ; but we are 
not aware of its being used as a medicine alone. 

Common white sugar, when pure (as it generally is), 
is, judging by the eye, a good food. The unclarified sugar, 
however, is better, because it has in it more elements ; the 
old-time sugar planters preferred brown sugar; there is an 
aroma and bouquet to it not found in white sugar; so also 
maple sugar unclarified is much preferred to white maple 
sugar. 

Molasses: This is the uncrystallizable mother liquor of 
sugar cane juice, or ought to be as in the old-fashioned mo- 
lasses. It is said new processes are now used and a good 
deal of molasses is but a fluid extract. Other things being 
equal, molasses is preferred to syrup of white sugar as 
food on chemical grounds only. 

Condition of eater: No doubt some can take it better 



CANE SUGAR WHEAT 



129 



than others, and there are very few civilized people who 
do not use it in some way or other. 

Mental kingdom: A poor food chemically, it cannot be 
of mental uplift. 

Cause of disease: Sugar is specially prone to fermenta- 
tion, hence see chapter on same. 



WHEAT 

Is the most universally used vegetable food; 1749 B.C., 
the "time of wheat harvest," is spoken of as a measure of 
indefinite duration ; it has held its supremacy as the king 
of grains. Few civilized humans have not eaten wheat. 

Organic because it burns and it is an organ from an 
organism of the vegetable kingdom, though popularly it 
is not a "vegetable ;" it is not in the animal or mineral king- 
doms; mineral substances are found in wheat, but they do 
not place wheat in the mineral kingdom because of its bot- 
anic life. 

Spiritual kingdom: Wheat bread is the "staff of life" 
in its completeness and fullness of perfection that imply 
the existence of mind, intellect and soul. 

Good or bad: Used rightly, good; used wrongly, bad; 
this covering environment and deterioration. 

Condition of eaters: We know of no vegetable that agrees 
as a food and not as a relish (as celery) with more human 
beings than wheat. It is barred by no religious ban ; it agrees 
with peoples of every clime. 

Part used as food: The grain. 

Morphology: It is made with all the glory of architecture, 
solid geometry and structural details. The tegumental pro- 
tection is more elaborate than the roofing of a house or the 
hulling of a ship or the environments of man's preserved 
foods. The substance (parenchyma) of the wheat grain is 



130 WHEAT 

made up of starch grains and gluten granules arranged in 
solid cells of connective tissue, closely bound together and 
yet fitting each other by flat surfaces, making the cells ap- 
pear rhomboidal, angular, symmetrical, as if they were laid 
down in accord with a previously drawn architectural plan 
of the greatest skill, showing evidence of the highest me- 
chanical genius ; because of this anatomy it will keep indefi- 
nitely, away from moisture. 

This admirable anatomy hinders digestion. We cannot 
use wheat as the Roman soldier did in Caesar's army and 
eating when on the march, because such requires good teeth, 
and time that modern society does not have to spare. (The 
habit would be good to use, as long chewing starts the sal- 
ivary glands to secrete juices that even in the mouth change 
the starch into glucose ; digestion is helped and a load taken 
of! the bowels and liver.) 

'Chemistry: (See table, p. 124.) 

Physiology: It contains every element necessary for man 
in the proportions intended and is the most biologically per- 
fect food of the vegetable kingdom. 

Head: The large amount of phosphoric acid in whole 
wheat renders it especially fit to replace the triple phosphates 
usually found in excess in the urine after considerable men- 
tal exercise. Indeed, wheat being the vegetable food on 
which man can live the longest in health, proves this enough 
for our purpose here. 

Heart: The heart shows no weakness on a whole wheat 
diet. Its phosphorus and nitrogen feed the heart nerve 
ganglionic centers that make it an autonomy to cardiate for 
our lives ; for, unless actuated by its governor (ganglionic) 
to beat faster when more work is suddenly put upon it, "the 
wheel would be broken at the cistern" oftener than it is. 

Bone, teeth, nails and hair: Admirable because of sg 
much mineral food in soluble form. 



WHEAT 131 

Eyes: Contain mineral matter; the cornea and the crys- 
talline lens are not made of carbohydrates alone, and hence 
may be considered akin to bone, teeth, nails and hair. The 
soluble minerals of wheat are needed for their construction 
and nutrition. 

Force: Whole wheat is an example of the kinetic poten- 
tial energy stored up in a most admirable and wonderful 
manner for its actual energy to be exhibited in man who eats 
it; a marvelous example of the conservation of energy dis- 
played ninety-three million miles away. (It is wonderful 
how white Hour has such a hold on poor people. A poor 
man once said, "Doctor, you will never get my people to use 
wheat meal or whole wheat flour; they think they are good 
enough to have the best flour with the rich and would feel 
themselves degraded to eat the dark." And this, notwith- 
standing that a cup of cleaned whole wheat with three cups 
of water, boiled in a water bath for five hours or until it 
shows a reaction of glucose is food enough for a family of 
four to six, costing for wheat say two cents ; "surely the 
destruction of the poor is their own poverty" of common 
sense.) The gluten of wheat contains nitrogen; the more 
gluten cells removed in the milling, then the less nitrogen 
and the less dynamis. In view of the most universal use 
of wheat preparations by man the question of dynamis 
is vital and comes to every human being of the dominant 
races. 

Heat units: The animal heat is well kept up by it in the 
normal nourishment. 

Climate: Found in all. It follows civilized man into 
every clime though not a tropical product. 

Customs: Wheat finds a place in ethics where it is obtain- 
able. If the savage does not eat it, it is because he cannot 
get it. (Our Indians eat white Hour when it is to be had 
and some with disaster, dying of consumption.) 



132 WHEAT 

Blood, skin, muscle and kidney food: It has fully met 
the requirements, but not in chronic diseases, though it is 
the first vegetable food to be offered to the ill save the 
relishes. 

Sole solid food: Forty-five days is the longest time known 
where wheat has been lived on by Americans, including cof- 
fee, without physical damage. Here is its indisputable pre- 
eminence at present. It is possible that dates may contest 
this. 

Parasites: Flies lay their eggs in wheat meal, and entire 
wheat flour sours from fermentative vegetations and moist- 
ure, but common sense and care will avoid these. As water 
is made less noxious by boiling, so is wheat by cooking at 
the much higher temperature of 275 to 300 degrees Fahr. 
of baking. Partial list: aphid or louse; beetle; bug; bulb 
fly, meromyza ; bulb worm, anthomyid ; maggot and cater- 
puTar; chafer; cut worm; eel worm; gall fly; midge; mil- 
dew ; mite ; moth ; pest ; plant louse ; smut. 

Religion: It is considered a clean food by all religions. 
No one in India breaks caste by eating wheat. 

Alimentary canal and fermentation: Not if properly 
cooked, chewed and the eater's digestive organs are in good 
order. Whole wheat much chewed and (better) whole 
wheat well cooked are especially good in the cure of consti- 
pation. {See Fermentation.) 

Intemperance: As with anything that is good, the satis- 
faction of appetite is a test for temperance in eating. Still 
other things being equal, less harm would be expected from 
wheat than other foods, as nature would excite vomiting to 
relieve the overloaded organs. Doubtless this vomiting 
would be considered a disease by some when in reality it 
was only an effort to prevent disease, set up by the watchful 
care of the solar plexus. This government of the state of 



WHEAT 133 

the stomach by thirst, by the sense of overloading and by 
vomiting, is one of the acts of the involuntary nerves. 

Bread: Is the most common form of wheat eaten. 

Kinds of bread: Unleavened and leavened. Unleavened 
whole wheat bread is the baked result of true Graham flour, 
wheat meal or entire wheat flour, mixed with water and air 
into dough. After it comes from the oven it is called 
"gems." Leavened bread is the same with the addition of 
yeast. 

Object of bread: A more digestible food of wheat. In 
unleavened bread the whole wheat flour mixed with salt and 
water incorporates air bubbles into its substance of sticky 
gluten filled in with starch. In baking it is subjected 
to a heat of 275 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, which goes 
through the substance of the loaf; the water is expanded 
into steam, which causes the bread to rise in caverns of 
varying sizes according to the kneading of the dough ; this 
vesiculation gives more surface for heat to act on and par- 
tially turns the starch into dextrin, as it does in the crust 
which is more soluble than starch. In leavening bread the 
process is the same as in the unleavened, adding alcohol, 
carbonic acid gas, succinic acid, more water, etc., and 
changing the starch partly into glucose ; at 300 degrees 
Fahrenheit the alcohol and carbonic acid gas are evaporated 
and help the vesiculation very much in their dissipation. 
Cooks desire in bread that it be well raised into a fine sponge, 
where the cavities are very small, uniform and even, thus 
making it look puffy to catch the eye and later the palate. 
Leavened bread is more desirable than unleavened, as it is 
more digestible, the glucose formation being well begun. 
Whole wheat flour requires less yeast, one-quarter of a yeast 
cake being ample when dough is raised over night for a small 
family, one cake being needed for the same quantity of 



134 WHEAT 

ordinary flour ; or if the quick process is used in bread mak- 
ing, a whole cake is needed. It is probable that the excess 
of yeast in ordinary whole wheat bread making has inter- 
fered with its introduction, as there has been souring of the 
bread. 

Souring is due to the formation of vinegar yeast ; always 
alcohol yeast, kept growing to a certain point, is followed 
by vinegar as shadows follow man in the sunlight ; vinegar is 
sour (the word means sour wine), and is injurious in bread 
and the bane of the intestinal fermentations (see Fermenta- 
tion), hence all cooks try to prevent it, which is best done 
by baking the dough before it has formed. Some bakers 
prevent it by adding carbonate of soda or ammonia to the 
dough, which is not a good plan, as the acetate of soda re- 
mains ; wheat containing the right proportion of minerals 
already, the adding of another salt to this is not good bi- 
ology. 

Mushes: Whole wheat ground, crushed or rolled, cooked 
with water three or four parts to one part, in a water bath 
five or more hours until done. Objection is, there is not 
chance enough to change the starch into glucose. 

Baking powders: As bread is wanted to be puffy, this 
process can be accelerated by using carbonic acid gas that 
comes from the carbonate of sodium and tartaric acid, phos- 
phate, of lime or alum. They simply puff up the bread and 
do not change the starch into glucose and add extra salts 
to the system. 

Aerated bread: Air forced into dough under pressure. 
Baked, the air expands and vesiculates the bread which is 
a beautifully white product and better than the baking pow- 
der product, but because the middle of the loaf showed a 
dark spot, which came from the morphology of the air, 
aerated bread went into disuse. 

Leavened bread would be unhealthy but for the baking, 



WHEAT 135 

as 300 degrees Fahrenheit kills the yeast, or at any rate 
renders it harmless. 

Bacilli in bread: Drawings (American) of bread bacilli 
were in the archives of the Victoria Institute, London, in 
1884; heat injures them, but in many instances after baking 
they were found automobile and active. 

The crust of whole wheat bread is nutritious because of 
its dextrin (C12, H20, Oio), which is soluble, more digest- 
ible, and not so sweet as sugar. 

Cakes (flour, eggs, butter and sugar) made from whole 
wheat Hour are better than those made from white flour, but 
not conventionally, as they appear less delicate. They are 
richer in the mineral salts needed to make tissues and digest 
better. For example, whole wheat doughnuts act better in 
delicate stomachs than common flour doughnuts, and as 
such they have been recommended for healthy people who 
think sugarless life is not worth living. Also in pie crust, 
whole wheat meal and flour have been found good, because 
of the extra chemical elements in the gluten which has been 
allowed to remain in the flour. 

Common Hour: Is made up of the body or parenchyma of 
wheat and does not include the coats, especially the gluten 
comb coat, hence it is deficient in mineral elements and pro- 
teids found in said gluten ; and is thus manufactured on the 
ground of beauty, that requires whiteness as the sine qua 
non, and because the coats are deemed useless and injurious ; 
the milling all runs to this ideal, not that the millers think 
so, but because people will not buy nor use flour unless it is 
the color of snow; darker flours are not in fashion, even 
though you prove them to be better ; the millers are to be 
given great credit, for when in 1884, the attention of the 
National Association of Millers was drawn to the subject of 
impoverishment of flour, they voluntarily improved their 
processes and doubled the amount of mineral elements in 



I36 WHEAT 

without darkening the flour. This is now the standard 
of white flour. We wish here to thank them for this great 
gain. 

Common Hour cake: The excess of sugar and fat sub- 
stances and the lack of mineral elements form objections to 
it ; the delicateness is more in looks than in reality ; a cake is 
a composite substance, and composite foods are harder to 
digest than single ones (see. Fermentation). Sponge ca-ke 
is least hurtful ; it is made of eggs, flour and sugar, the few- 
est materials. Wedding cake is especially hard to digest be- 
cause it is so composite. 

Hardtack: Unleavened bread made of common flour 
without salt, baked and then kiln dried. It is a true biscuit 
(bis — twice; cuit — baked). Used in the U. S. Army and 
Navy as ship bread because it keeps so well and for so long 
a time. U. S. Surgeon A. P. Clarke, now of Cambridge, 
Mass*., said that soldiers in the war of 1861 came across 
some hardtack that was thirty years old and in good order. 
This was due to the absence of yeast, which is found in the 
soft tack. Although the yeast is killed in baking, still leav- 
ened bread does not keep like hardtack, as it offers a nest 
for the vegetations of fermentations very akin to yeast, as 
it has more water and hence is more susceptible to the germs 
of yeast found in almost every atmosphere ready to grow on 
moist soil in the dark. Hardtack of common flour has not 
stood the test of sole feeding, as the men so fed suffered con- 
sequently from acute consumption of the bowels or intestinal 
tuberculosis. {See Fermentation.) 

Pies: The so-called and much-berated mince pie is really 
the best, as it is made up of beef with relishes. Custard pie 
comes next so far as nourishment is concerned. Pies, being 
so composite, are not commended as daily food; but if 
people will eat such let them choose mince or custard; if 
the flour is whole wheat, so much the better. 






WHEAT — WHITE POTATO 137 

Puddings made from Hour: They are a species of cake 
made of fruits, sweets and crumbs of bread, usually boiled 
and sometimes baked. They are truly "twice" cooked and 
therefore come under biscuits. The remarks as to cake will 
apply to them, only emphasizing that whole wheat meal or 
flour will remove much of the physiological objection to 
puddings. They are soft generally and thus do away with 
chewing; it cannot be too much insisted on that teeth are 
made to be used properly. 

Breakfast foods: Those of wheat are superior to those 
of oat; objection is made to all preparations that have been 
malted by mixing with molasses and treating by heaf, 
resulting in too rich malt food. 

Infant's foods: The senior writer's paper, Cereal Foods 
under the Microscope, 1882, demonstrated that certain 
preparations of this much advertised class were wanting 
and that there was much to discourage the physician 
wrestling with the problem of tiding over the difficulties of 
feeding babes; the process of malting is to-day carried to 
excess in some preparations, resulting in the production 
of rickets in the feeder. The chemistry and morphology of 
these preparations can be sufficiently studied by the physi- 
cian to enlighten him as to what is before him. 

A motherhood diet of whole wheat and meat results in 
human nursed children who cut their teeth normally and do 
not have cholera infantum; the eruptive diseases of such 
children are mild and harmless. 

WHITE POTATO 

Solatium tuberosum: It is largely used by civilized man; 
in 1586 a.d. was introduced to England from the Andes in 
South America ; is a tuber or root, composed mainly of 
starch. Curiously enough, it belongs to the solanum family, 
in which is the well-known belladonna, so called because 



I38 WHITE POTATO 

atropia, its active principle, dilates the pupils, making the 
ladies (donna) more beautiful (bella). 

Varieties: There are over five hundred, all solanum tu- 
berosum to the botanist, but to the farmer they are early 
rose, etc. 

Vegetable kingdom: Certainly. 

Mental kingdom: They are not regarded as intellectual 
food, par excellence. 

Good: When properly used. 

Condition of eaters: Not so well borne by the sick. 
Rarely are they given to patients. (It is curious that people 
will more willingly give them up than wheat.) 

Pathology: Not known. We think no detriment has been 
traced to potatoes save in the famine in Ireland about fifty 
years ago, when the Irish lived on potatoes with disastrous 
effects, among which typhus fever was prominent; but in 
this case the potatoes were rotten and were all the food to 
be had. Under such circumstances typhus would be ex- 
pected, as it is a germ disease, as is also potato rot. 

Chemistry: They are mostly starch. The mineral ele- 
ments are not so large as in wheat (see table p. 124.) 

Structure: They are compact, but nothing like wheat. 
Boiling, steaming, baking brings on rapid and great changes, 
that prepare them for digestion. A section of raw potato 
shows a network whose meshes are filled with starch grains. 
Boil, steam or bake potatoes and the starch grains are found 
enclosed in sacs of glassy cellulose so thick that if a sac 
could be magnified to the length of two inches its coat would 
be one-quarter of an inch thick. The starch grains in per- 
fect cooking are reduced to a uniform homogeneous mass 
that does not polarize light; if not thoroughly cooked, the 
starch grains preserve their shape, more or less, and more or 
less polarize light, so that polarized light and changes of 
form are tests of potato cooking; the connective fibrous tis- 



WHITE POTATO 139 

sues of the potato are not very strong, and hence potatoes 
are easily cooked; the mealy condition of the potato is due 
to the separation of the network of cellulose into said sacs, 
which are of many other shapes besides of the tgg. In 
Smith and McNeil's restaurant potatoes are turned into glu- 
cose by cooking. 

Sole solid food: Probably not over a month. 

Multiple food: Almost always. Meats are always used 
with potatoes, which are deemed ethically to be the chief 
vegetable food (but which wheat is). However, it is not 
compounded with other foods as wheat is, nor do people use 
free sugar on potatoes as on cereals. They are not used in 
cakes or pies nor puddings to any extent. 

Best cooking: Steaming or baking, as thus the soluble 
mineral salts are not soaked away, nor are they sodden or 
heavy as often in boiling, hence are not so indigestible ; 
the aim in cooking potatoes is the change of starch into glu- 
cose and to soften their substance. 

Raw fried potatoes: When fried (not immersed in a bath 
of boiling fat), very briefly, only enough to turn the cell 
water of the potato into steam and thus change the starch 
into glucose, and having only butter or fat enough to keep 
the cuttings from adhering to the pan, they are healthful ; 
the whole nutritive and palatal virtue of the potato appears 
to be utilized like the potato baked in the embers of a forest 
fire in the spring. Saratoga chips: Good, if not overcooked 
into dry, indigestible matter. French fried: They very often 
agree with delicate digestive organs. Mashed: These are 
boiled ; mashing improves them, but does not make them 
digestible unless they are changed into glucose. Boiled: 
They should, but rarely do, come up to the glucose standard 
(as above), when their taste is pleasant and their substance 
dissolves readily on the tongue and hard palate and act well 
in the stomach ; too often they are sodden, heavy, tasteless, 



I40 WHITE POTATO 

and give no reaction of glucose. Biscuit potatoes: Twice 
cooked by boiling, slicing cold, and cooking once more ; 
this carefully done, they are more digestible and appetizing ; 
it is a process to be commended, when the first cooking is 
not satisfactory ; indeed, this is a rule for many cooked arti- 
cles of food. There is danger of carrying this too far and 
over-cooking, and then you are as bad off as before. Potato 
bread: Is not bad, but not desirable, as there is no gluten in 
potatoes to vesiculate into sponge and crumbs. 

Head: Fair. Heart: Baked and raw fried potatoes are 
"hearty" food. Eyes: Fair; there is too much starch to be 
changed into glucose to make them good eye food. Bone, 
teeth, nails and hair: Far better than common flour. 

How often used: Generally at the midday or evening 
meal by the mass of mankind, and always in combination. 

Heat: The starch alone makes this. 

Force: Not so much as in whole wheat and dates.* 

Climate: The natural potato range is in the Andes, from 
Chili to Colombia and north to New Mexico ; it is cultivated 
in all the United States, including Alaska and the Canadas. 
It cannot be regarded other than a universal civilized human 
food with a fine reputation and character. It fits into the 
customs of many races and peoples. 

Fashionable and aesthetic: It has not been injured by 
fashion like wheat. This is probably because the starchy 
parenchyma or substance is white colored enough to meet 
the behest that starch food should be white. 

* There is a Revolutionary story told of a flag of truce between Gen. 
Marion and the British in South Carolina. During the conference, the British 
officers were invited to dine on baked sweet potatoes and drinks; the plainness 
of the feast amazed the guests and they wondered how they could fight on such 
rations; yet the potato fed soldiers conquered. There must have been some 
force to potatoes to vanquish foes who had a so-called more liberal diet (and 
it may be said that less force was expended in digestion of a single food) and 
of course there was more force to expend in fighting. And then Gen. Marion's 
men had food for their spirits in the fact that they were fighting for liberty, 
while their foes were fighting for wages. 



WHITE POTATO 



141 



Religion: Not under the ban. 

Builders of tissue: Better than common flour, though not 
equal to whole wheat, milk or beef. 

Skin: Never have known it to cause skin diseases, which 
are, nine cases out of ten, expressions "of poor feeding or 
exhausted force. The germs of skin diseases may lurk 
latent in the blood, ready to prey when the vital resistance 
is lowered below par. As jockeys make one test of the 
health of the horses by the skin, so may we of the health 
in man. A hard, tight, erupted skin in man or cattle is not 
a sign of health, and when people walk in with the flags fly- 
ing of irritated, inflamed skin, one may be sure there is 
disease present, but not brought on by potato feeding. 

Alimentary canal: If properly cooked (that is, if their 
starch is changed into glucose before eating) do not fer- 
ment; the morphology of the bowel discharges for years 
has shown that the ordinarily cooked potato does not 
digest; their sacs of starch run the gauntlet of digestion 
unchanged save by the alcohol and vinegary fermentations 
vegetations. To be sure the first action of intestinal alco- 
holic yeast is in the right direction, to wit, solubility of the 
starch; but the vinegar and carbonic acid gases undo all 
this good work and cause catarrh of the bowels. The absence 
of yeast from the potato is advantageous. With the precau- 
tion of proper cooking we think that potatoes might be given 
the sick as sole vegetable food oftener than they are to 
advantage. 

Potatoes ferment into glucose, alcohol, carbonic acid gas, 
succinic acid, water. Alcohol is made from potatoes in mash 
tubs and stills ; sometimes the alimentary tract becomes a 
brewery from potato fermentation, but not so often as with 
other vegetable foods. {See, Fermentation.) 

Parasites: Not many save the rot. This is very visible 
from its black color (due to bacteria and mycelia of the 



142 WHITE POTATO — RICE 

fungus) and bitter to the taste. The admirable potato skin 
keeps orl most infections ; even when the potato is wounded 
and its skin removed, nature protects by hardening, thicken- 
ing and blackening the denuded parts on a par with the 
marvellous process that heals a human skin wound; indeed, 
the potato seems as instinct with life saving skin processes 
as man's. 

Intemperance: Not much. 

The "potato bug" diminishes the supply, and, unchecked, 
would make a potato famine and ruin the farmers. This 
beetle is only a phase of the battle for life that is going on 
everywhere on land and sea. Parasites are very much in 
evidence in all biology. Potato beetle, doryphora decern- 
lineata ; beetle ; lema trilineata ; blight or rot ; eel ; fly or 
blister beetle; fly, another meloid; rot, phytophthora infes- 
tans ; weevil, trichobaris trinotatus ; worm and tomato down 
larva" the potato contends with. 

RICE 

A grass, the staple food of India, China and the Indian 
Archipelago and eaten by more human beings than any other 
cereal. The best quality is produced in South Carolina and 
Georgia, brought there in 1693 from Madagascar. 

Vegetable kingdom: Yes. 

Mental kingdom: The food for so many races which, 
taken as a whole, do not manifest intellectual supremacy to 
those races who eat wheat and animal foods, it cannot *be 
called the best mental or spiritual food. 

Good: Yes. Bad when not normal or properly prepared 
in culture, keeping and cooking. 

Condition of feeders: Seems best suited to colored sav- 
agery, the tropics and Oriental religions. 

Physiology: Rice maintains all the systemic functions of 
said races, but not at the highest standard. 



RICE 143 

Pathology: Rice does not confer the resistance to disease 
as other diet. For example, the recent plague in India rav- 
aged the native eaters of rice, when Europeans, not ex- 
clusive rice eaters, escaped. Leprosy is common in rice-eat- 
ing countries ; in America it is exceptional.* Elephantiasis 
is also an Asiatic disease. It is very much with disease as 
water environs a ship; if there are any leaks, the water or 
disease will get in. A tight, whole or healthy ship or body 
will not leak. 

Directly, it does not confer disease unless improperly 
cooked. The senior writer, with his wife, once visited an 
eminent medical man and was given a rice soup in which the 
grains were contracted, hard, dark and difficult to chew. 
This gentleman died not very long afterwards and such food 
must have injured him. Rice has everywhere the reputa- 
tion of a wholesome food. 

Chemistry: Four analysts give albumenoids 5.9 to 7.8, 
starch 73.9 to 79.9, gum and sugar 1.6 to 2.3, fat 0.1 to 0.9, 
ash 0.3 to 0.9, water 9.8 to 14.6 (How Crops Grow). It 
has not been chemically and mechanically deteriorated as 
wheat has been at the behest of eye aesthetics. 

Morphology: Rice grains are hard, almost glass like, ob- 
long, pointed at one end. It has no germ like wheat; the 
starch is very small, rhomboidal, with angles so that the fit of 
the grain is a splendid specimen of solid geometry. The 

* Beri-Beri from Rice Eating. — Baron Sancyoski, the Director-General 
of the Medical Department of the Japanese navy, published in the Sei-i-Kwai 
Medical Journal, for April and May, 1901, interesting statistics in relation to 
the prevalence of beri-beri in the Japanese army and navy between the years 
1884-1885: The conclusions arrived at are: That in the east the rice eaters are 
the only persons affected by the disease; that its extirpation from the army and 
navy of Japan is due solely to improvement in diet; that rice/ eaters transmit 
beri-beri to localities where it did not exist before their arrival, and that it is 
inseparably connected with rice, and is caused by lack of nutrition. It is more 
apt to occur among communities which are supplied by "white Chinese rice" 
than among those which live upon "red Chinese rice." This last yields, upon 
analysis, a larger quantity of fat and albumin. — American Medicine, Jan. 6, 
1902. 



144 RICE 

outside coat is easily removed, and is, if anything, more 
silicious than wheat; it grits in the teeth like the silicious 
walls of equisetum ; its structure reminds one of dentine and 
is harder than the chitinous end of grains of corn, etc. The 
best cooking (Japanese) of rice leaves the grain separate 
and non-adhesive; the American cooking makes the grain 
soft, sodden, sticky, the longitudinal grain laid open lateral- 
ly and generally with a concavity opposite the groove or 
hilus. (A late naval surgeon, Dr. Coues, who had large ex- 
perience in Asiatic waters, wholly condemns the American 
rice cooking, and praises the Oriental; his opinion deserves 
consideration, as the best means of cuisine should be em- 
ployed.) There is an absence in rice of the abundant con- 
nective fibrous tissues found in wheat and potatoes. A mor- 
phological study of rice grains (commercial) shows the 
substance to be of a pure white, consolidated into glass-like 
continuous tissue masses, which in cross section (an irreg- 
ular oval) are in thirds with a deep line of demarcation 
corresponding with the faint longitudinal furrows; under 
polarized light the starch grains, which were about 1-6000 
inch in diameter, did not respond. This showed they were 
cooked, probably in a kiln; further proved by the Fehling 
copper test. The almost entire absence of connective tissue 
was very apparent. Altogether the anatomy of rice is very 
unique and wonderful. 

Sole food: A large portion of the human race use it as 
an almost sole food, and it must be said that rice can be 
lived on indefinitely or that more races live on it .than any 
other cereal, but special experiments with Americans have 
shown that rice can be lived on safely for forty days. 

Multiple food: Among Europeans and western races it is 
usually a dessert in the form of puddings and rarely eaten 
alone, but on the other hand it enters like wheat flour into 
composite foods like cake and pies. 



RICE 145 

Cures: It will act well in weak stomachs, because it is 
digestible when properly cooked. 

Brain: Not equal to wheat. 

Heart: It is not hearty, at least it does not figure as such, 
though it does give strong hearts to the porters in India who 
are said to carry such enormous loads, and to the jinriksha 
men in Japan, who run with their little carriages sixty miles 
a day. Rice, therefore, must be conceded to be a good heart 
food, after the system has gotten thoroughly accustomed to 
it, so as to assimilate all its nourishment possible. (But the 
paragraph on Pathology shows the awakening of Japanese 
authorities to the greater value of other foods than rice.) 

Eyes: Experiments are needed to determine. 

Bone, teeth, muscle, nails, hair: Rice is a good food for 
such. 

How often used: Daily without much variety. 

Heat: Abundant, as it has plenty of starch. 

Force: Accounts vary; it must confer actual strength 
and energy to do work which in the warm countries is not 
to be compared in amount to the work of men in temperate 
climates; the Orients eat rice because they cannot get 
anything else to eat. It is safe to say that rice eaters have 
not conquered the world ; indeed the history of Chinese wars 
with the Anglo-Saxon shows a great lack of force in China. 

Climate: Tropical and temperate zones. Rice dry will 
keep in almost any climate. 

Fashion: Its preparations grace the most fashionable 
menus. 

Aesthetic: The senior writer remembers portions of rice 
a la creme that he ate in Paris in 1862, because of the appe- 
tizing relish, and regretted that in 1889 he could not find 
like preparation. 

Religion: It is allowed on fast days in the Latin Church 
and among the Hindoos. 



I46 RICE 

Tissue builder: Its great use proves this. 

Skin: It has not been known to cause eruptions like urti- 
caria or nettle rash, but the prevalence of leprosy in rice- 
eating countries of the Orient show that it is not a perfect 
skin food; either it does not confer immunity against in- 
fectious skin diseases, or it does not prove strong enough 
to expel the disease whose ravages with the skin are simply 
horrible. The writers' experience with a case of leprosy 
shows that animal food diet is the best; so long as the pa- 
tient adhered to it the improvement was marked and good ; 
relinquishment of it was followed by death. A sole rice diet 
with Americans for over forty days prepares the system for 
a nest of said bacillus of leprosy, or, to put it differently, 
rice does not offer immunity from leprosy that the associa- 
tion with animal food does. 

Fermentation: Sometimes; but not having yeast used in 
its preparation, it is not so liable when delayed in transit 
through the alimentary canal. Of course the cooking makes 
a great difference about fermentation. If it is made insol- 
uble by under-cooking, it will be liable to resist the digest- 
ive process and be left a prey to the alimentary canal yeasts. 
Rice is fermented into alcohol and vinegar in some coun- 
tries. The sake of Japan is the basis of a rice vinegar used 
in Worcestershire and other sauces. 

Parasites, animal and vegetable: If the plants are of low 
vitality, unsupplied with the needed soluble mineral food, 
they will be subject to parasites, but not so much as potatoes. 
The dense glassy character of the rice grains is a protection ; 
farmers plow to break up resistance to crops ; they do not 
sow grain by scattering it on the untilled soil ; the same prin- 
ciple obtains as to diseases getting a nest. 

Intemperance : Not much. Is peculiarly a temperance 
food. Altogether rice is worthy of the high place it holds in 
the use and estimate of mankind. 



RYE 



It ranks next to wheat: is mentioned in the Bible quite 
early (Exodus 9:32); deserves more consideration than it 
gets in America. 

Vegetable kingdom: Is a grass grain. 

Mental kingdom: It subserves the intellect. 

Good: When properly grown, prepared and used. Not 
bad in itself. 

Condition of feeders: Strong, hearty and stalwart, 
though slow. 

Physiology: Much as wheat; tested on patients, rye bread 
has proved good. 

Diseased tissues: Does not produce such, if normal and 
properly prepared. Per contra: "In one city in Europe, there 
are more people with bowlegs, hunchbacks and other crooked 
shapes, than anywhere else, and it is said to be because the 
children do not have the right kind of foods. These little 
children live on rye bread and black coffee." — Pp. 29-30, 
New Century Primer of Hygiene, Amer. Book Co., 1901. 

Chemistry: Everything there to make healthy tissues; it 
has a gluten like wheat. Einhoff says the analysis of rye 
flour is 61.07 starch, 9.18 gluten, 3.28 albumen, 3.28 sugar, 
11.09 §" erm > 6.38 vegetable fiber, 5.62 loss. See also table, 
page 124. 

Morphology is much the same as that of wheat, as to 
teguments, connective tissues, architectural arrangement, 
gluten and starch cells and fine granules of starch as shown 
by iodine, other granules not stained by iodine and fine 
automobile granules. The starch grains beautifully polarize 
light, are more globar than wheat starch ; none oval as potato 
starch ; gluten cells appear smaller than those of wheat. 

Sole food: American experience forty to fifty days ; rye is 
the principal and staple vegetable food of the German 
peasants. 

147 



148 RYE 

Manifold food: Not as much as wheat. 

Cures: It is used early in the cure of organic diseases. 

Head: The above shows it has a good effect on the 
nerve centers of the brain. 

Hearty: It could not sustain health in life for forty days 
unless it were good ; but is not so hearty as wheat. 

Eyes: It must be regarded as a good eye food, especially 
as its starch is not separated from the rye mineral elements. 

Bone, teeth, nails and hair: Rye has mineral elements 
enough for these. 

How often used: Indefinitely with other foods. 

Heat: Rye has abundant starch for all needed heat. 

Force: The strength of peasants and the ability of 
Americans to live on rye as sole food for forty days prove 
it to be a good force food. The flour eating French army in 
i87i # fell before the rye eating Teutons, and well they 
might, fed on impoverished whitened bread. 

Climate: Best in cool climes. 

Customs: Is used mostly by European peasants as black 
bread ; here is a curious custom ; the mass of Europe prefer 
the black bread, while Americans prefer white. This is on 
a par with the Chinese using white, and Occidentals black 
for mourning. Surely there is no accounting for tastes. 
When will fashion have its dictates (so blindly obeyed) put 
on a biological basis broader, truer, saner than the aesthetics 
of color that in one part of the world makes white the same 
as black in another ? 

Skin: Confers healthy skin. Per contra, it is well known 
that the ergot in rye, a fungus (claviceps purpura) eaten in 
Europe by the peasants in black bread has produced dreadful 
results in the skin, as well as internal organs. 

Pumper nickel bread: A coarse rye bread; sample bought 
in New York City showed a large excess of yeast plants, 
with sourness, i.e., vinegar. This sour bread must be con- 



RYE BARLEY 1 49 

demned and the eaters ought to spend the force uselessly 
used in digesting pumper nickel on some better object. 
Whole wheat bread would save this loss. 

Parasites: Ergot: As said, the people of Europe eat 
ergotized bread and "terrible and devastating epidemics of 
dry gangrene, typhus fever and nerve diseases, like convul- 
sions, in Europe and especially France have long been 
ascribed to the use of this unwholesome food ;" a poison in 
large doses, common sense ought to prevent this, but it may 
have been eaten from stern necessity. The unusual yeast 
in pumper nickel bread is also a vegetable parasite, but 
generally the German rye rolls are pure and free from 
parasites. 

Fermentation: Less prone to same than many other 
foods ; its relation to distilled and malted liquors treated 
under alcohol. 

BARLEY 

It is mentioned in the Bible (Exodus 9:31), and by 
Pliny and Virgil ; used now as food chiefly in soups ; barley 
bread is very rare. Chief use of barley is to make beer and 
whiskey. 

Vegetable kingdom: A grass grain. 

Good: Yes. 

Physiology: It is adapted to man in almost ail climes for 
normal biology when not used as a fermented drink. 

Disease power as sole food: Not when common sense is 
obeyed. 

Chemistry : Einhoff found in barley 67.18 per cent, starch, 
5.21 sugar, 4.62 gum, 3.52 gluten, 1.15 albumen, .24 phos- 
phate of lime, 7.27 vegetable fiber. Prousb found 55 per cent, 
of Hordein in barley, but in malt the Hordein was 12 per 
cent. Perhaps its disuse as bread may be due to the small 
quantity of gluten. See also p. 124. 






150 BARLEY 

Morphology: The starch grains are discoid and oblong 
and may be thus distinguished from wheat and rye. Speci- 
men from hotel kitchen showed: Grains partly denuded of the 
integument, specially at the ends ; section at one end, showed 
some germ buds — teguments solid massive substance cells — 
gluten cells much smaller than those of wheat — starch grains 
all sizes, smaller than wheat ; great abundance of minute 
starch grains, some automobile ; iodine reaction, purple for 
starch, gluten cells yellow. 

Sole food: Have no knowledge. 

Multiple foods: In soups. 

Produce disease: Save when turned into alcoholic drinks. 

Cure: It is not considered as desirable in food treatment 
of organic disease. 

Head: As solid food, good; as liquid, deleterious to the 
head because of the alcohol. The food use of barley was 
great in the days of Ruth, who gleaned barley in Boaz' field ; 
judging from the utterances of the Jews, in those times 
there was no lack of intellectual development, as their litera- 
ture survives to-day and is more read than any other. Until 
conflicting evidence is adduced, barley must be considered a 
good head food. 

Hearty: It must be ranked thus. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails, hair: As fashion has not dictated 
its impoverishment in milling, save in the pearl barley, it is 
good. As a rule it must be stated, that all edible grains by 
nature, have the proper proportions of starch and mineral 
elements necessary for man's existence and if there is trouble 
with said grains, it comes of man, not of God. Experiments 
noted in "How Crops Grow'' show this plainly, to wit : that 
an excess of soluble mineral food is as bad as no mineral 
food, and the carbohydrates cannot make perfect tissues in 
eyes, bone, teeth, nails and hair. 

How often used: With other foods indefinitely. 



BARLEY I 5 I 

Will barley confer small sized intestines? No, this is 
only done by animal foods (and by proper exercises). 

Heat: The starch furnishes an abundance. 

Force: There is enough nitrogen in barley to give force 
enough for life work. 

Climate: Is cultivated successfully within the Arctic circle, 
and in the tropics at elevation and has the largest range of all 
the cereals. 

Customs: Great changes in moderns. Not used for 
horses' feed nor man's so much, but barley is now the great 
staple of malted liquors, and some whiskeys are made from 
malted barley by a second distillation. Probably a two- 
thirds diminution of gluten as compared with wheat is the 
cause of the decline of barley bread, as the vesieulation of 
breads depends on the gluten and also the less gluten the 
less nitrogen, but ethics has not condemned barley to impov- 
erishment, as it has wheat. 

Aesthetics: If it has now been tabooed for man except in 
soup, it can hardly be said to have met the demand of the 
palatal taste ; in the products of distilleries and breweries 
it meets the aesthetics of taste of multitudes. 

Builder of issues: Good. 

Effect on skin: Good, so far as we know. 

Fermentation: It must (as it is mostly starch) when 
lodged in alimentary canal, by arrested digestion or by diver- 
sion of nerve force, 

Animal and vegetable parasites: We do not hear of there 
being any in the case of barley; for instance, when organisms 
are preyed on by parasites, it is generally because their vitali- 
ty is impaired beforehand ; this principle should never be for- 
gotten ; it orients all through medicine, taken in the broad 
sense ; as we repeat our meals daily, so should we have this 
principle repeated here. 

Intemperance: As now used it would be difficult to be 



152 BARLEY — CORN — HO M I NY 

intemperate with barley bread, as there is so little of it, but 
yielding for the time to the plea that alcohol is a "food" 
then barley may be and is a source of intemperance. Malt 
liquors are really wines (G. B. Wood). It is possible to 
drink too much beer, and ales and porters both of which 
are merely stronger beers. Probably the reason why barley 
is selected for the beer family is because of its less nitrogen, 
gluten and mineral salts. 

CORN— HOMINY 

Corn is largely used in America ; is a grass useful to not 
only man, but its seeds, leaves and stocks are food for 
cattle and horses. In the Southern United .States and 
Mexico, maize is the great staple cereal food. But it is 
used mostly as hominy, which is the corn grain deprived 
of its tough coat of cellulose.* Corn is largely fed to cattle, 
swine, horses, mules, hens, ducks, geese ; is a great food in 
the new world where it originated ; abroad, it is not so great. 

Vegetable kingdom: Organic. 

Mental kingdom: Its general use shows it to be in this 
kingdom, because it has conferred mental powers on its 
eaters, when used as a solid food. (See Alcohol as to fluid 
foods.) 

Good: Rightly used; to those who judge goodness by 
money, it may be said that the 1898 year book of the United 
States Department of Agriculture, p. 678, gives tables of the 
principal crops as follows : corn $836,439,288, wheat 
$513,472,711, oat $232,312,207, rye $24,589,217, barley $45,- 
470,342, potatoes $91,024,521, tobacco $47,492,584, cotton 
$326,513,298. Whence it is seen, that corn is the most 
valuable crop in the United States ; three-eighths more than 

* The word "corn" includes wheat, maize, rye, barley and oats as used 
abroad, but in the United States "corn" means maize alone. It is important to 
remember this here, in order to avoid confusion. 



CORN HOMINY 153 

wheat (the imperial grain), and almost thrice that of cotton, 
once called the king of all crops. 

Bad: If not rightly kept, prepared and used. 

Condition of feeders: Is adapted to all ages beyond in- 
fancy. 

Morphology of corn: Taking the grain of Northern corn, 
the main foodal points in its anatomy are first, a thick, tough 
coat of semi-transparent cellulose almost like the cornea for 
density, toughness and hardness. Second, Next comes a stone 
like, chitinous, somewhat transparent reddish substance at 
the rounded distal end of the grain, which of course is quite 
indigestible. Third, Oil. Fourth, Starch grains which are 
small like rice starch. Fifth, Each corn is an ovary flattened 
on two sides, which are bevelled in the midst with a groove, 
as if made with a gouge ; at the pointed or proximal end, 
are the remains of the silk, which is a long tube through 
which the pollen from the male flowers goes to fructify each 
vegetable egg; the white or Southern corn differs from the 
New England corn by having less of the chitinous substance 
and more of the starch whose whiteness gives the name ; the 
protective coat of cellulose is so protective that its removal 
is needful for the perfect digestion, hence we have as our 
subject mainly : 

Hominy, which is made by soaking corn over night in 
wood ashes and water and then pounded with a wooden 
pestle in a wooden mortar, removing said outside skin and 
leaving the substance or parenchymatous starch with its oil 
for food. This is independent of the oil from corn smut, 
which oil probably is no more than the interstitial oil, utilized 
because the corn is spoilt for use as food by the fungus, that 
thrives best in wet weather. ( Corn oil is an article of com- 
merce in the United States.) When corn meal is used, the 
tough coat, the chiten and the oil all ground up together 
form obstacles to digestion. 



1 54 CORN HOMINY 

Morphology of hominy: It is made up of a starch that 
is cooked and hence does not polarize light, but the whole 
hominy does not give the reaction of dextrine with the 
Fehling's test. 

Chemistry. See Maize, p. 124. The fact that corn has so 
many good chemical elements does not prove its fitness for 
man ; the structural anatomy has much more to do with its 
dietetic value than the chemical. Go into a chemist's shop 
and select the elements as laid down in their analysis, eat them 
in their nakedness and you would not expect the same result 
as when these elements are dressed in the organic fabric of 
the corn. For the grain may environ these elements in such 
tough indigestible fabrics, as to defy the powers of digestion ; 
this is what obtains in corn, and the public for once has found 
out how to get over this difficulty by hominy. 

Physiology: Hominy has been proved a food able to fulfil 
all /unctions of the body. 

Disease making: Not when used with common sense. It 
does not destroy tissues. 

Sole food: For forty days. (Green corn, only for a short 
period, before derangement sets in.) 

Manifold food: As meal, it is largely used in New Eng- 
land in Boston Brozvn Bread. This is made of rye, corn meal 
and molasses ; Brown Bread (American) is made of unbolted 
wheat flour and corn meal ; these are fine foods. Corn is also 
used with sweets, milk and fruits in puddings. Indian 
pudding is made of corn meal as a basis. Hominy is used 
much with milk, cream and water. 

Cure disease: Hominy is one of these cereals used in the 
curing of chronic diseases.* 



* Some decades ago a Kentucky surgeon used to prepare cases of vesical 
stone for operation by a diet of milk and well cooked corn meal; this dietetic 
practice brought good results, as he gave his patients only two digestive prob- 
lems to solve. 



CORN — HOMINY 155 

Brain: Not equal to wheat; it has nerve food enough for 
man's needs. 

Hearty: Yes, on general evidence. It needs more experi- 
ments in this direction. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails, hair: It answers the demands 
because it is not an impoverished food. 

How often used: At every meal like rice and wheat, if 
desired. 

Heat: In addition to starch, it has oil to burn for heat, 
so it is a good food in the chemist's eyes. It ought to be 
better than wheat as to heat, on account of the oil. 

Force: In army usages, it excels wheat preparations, and 
its use by many farmers shows it has force to confer, even if 
it is not so easy as wheat of digestion, to which open air 
exercise is favorable as all know. 

Green corn: This is a food much liked. The fresher it 
is, the better ; we have recommended canners to conduct their 
operations in the cornfield. Green corn deteriorates rapidly 
by keeping. It should be tender when plucked, and if imme- 
diately cooked and eaten, is doubtless as good as hominy. 
In a History of the American Revolution (Boston, Stimpson 
and Clapp, 1832) a London reprint, page 131, says that 
General Gates' army in North Carolina had to eat "green 
corn and fruits met on the line of march ;" the consequence 
was "that the army was thinned by dysentery and other 
diseases usually caused by the heat of the weather and by 
unwholesome food," so that green corn in excess has been 
proved to be a bad food. It is added that good beef and 
half pound Indian meal rations at Deep Creek invigorated 
by their welcome refreshment. Comment is needless. 

Climate: It has a great range and its protective envelopes 
will make it keep in every clime, provided it is not wet. 

Ethics: It can hardly be called a fashionable food, 
although the gold yellowness of corn cakes makes them 



I56 CORN — HOMINY 

acceptable on the tables of the bon-ton. It is rather the food 
of the people who eat to live and do not live to eat. 

Religion: Noted in the Bible, though the word "corn" 
as used there means wheat, rye or barley. The Latin Church 
use it on fast days. Five grains of corn was the ration of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth at one time of famine, and this is 
sometimes repeated on Plymouth Rock anniversaries in New 
York ; it was the North American Indian food and the said 
five grains of corn is an exhibit to most forcibly remind how 
the Pilgrims suffered to give the keynote of religious tolera- 
tion and liberty, to a nation whose prosperity is the marvel 
of the world. 

Skin: It is good ; leprosy (common in rice eating nations ) 
is unknown amongst hominy eaters.* No doubt corn might 
produce skin diseases in those predisposed, for example: to 
eczerna or salt rheum. This is on the principle that the con- 
stitutional force that kept the eczema latent was so used up 
in digesting said corn that the eczema appeared, as prisoners 
will escape if not held in check by the constitutional measures 
always at work in a good government, or to use another civic 
illustration when the authorities are powerless there are 
mobs. Disease are mobs ready to work evil if not restrained, 
so that life is a question of vital force. Government of the 
body systemic overthrown is accompanied with disaster, as 
when the body politic is awed. 

Fermentation: The elimination of the husk of corn is a 
great preventative of fermentation in the alimentary canal, 
for jit allows access of the digestive juices to the substance of 
the grain. 

Parasites: Smut is one, but its blackness deters its use 
as food. There are also meal worms which are the larvae 
of flies deposited in meal (that was not properly cooled after 

* Coarsely ground corn food is thought to be a cause of leprosy in Mexico. 



CORN — HOMINY — SAGO I 57 

the heat of grinding) which cakes, heats and ferments with a 
vinegary smell; the meal becomes sticky like dough and is 
repulsive to the eye, smell and touch, and common sense 
rejects it. 

Intemperance: In the solid state as prepared food it does 
not foster intemperance, save from gluttonness perhaps, 
when some one has been starved so as to lose the control of 
common sense. There is something very satisfying to the 
palate in Boston brown bread, but we have never known of 
its being over eaten. With these limitations hominy is par 
excellence a food of the sober and temperate. 

SAGO 

This is a nutritious food, but only in the last half century 
has its good qualities been known ; it is a staple tropical food, 
palms and cycads ; these are exogenous plants increasing 
on the outside. Sago comes from the so-called pith ; some- 
times seven hundred pounds are taken from one tree. It is 
one of the first six or seven foods of the vegetable kingdom 
that maintain life the best. 

Mental kingdom food: Because of its sustaining life as 
sole food for so long. 

Bad: When not in normal condition, as to growth and 
preparation. 

Morphology: It differs from most vegetable foods we 
have named, in not being a cereal or seed, but is from the 
internal or medullary part of the stalk of the sago palm, 
which grows sometimes to a height of thirty feet in some 
cases; as age goes on, the central parts of the core are 
absorbed, leaving the palm trunk hollow ; it may be that this 
deposit is for food for the palm; also the core may not be 
furnished fast enough to keep up with the exogenous por- 



158 SAGO 

tion. The core is made of large starch grains, cuboid or 
solid cup or mullar shaped, easy to separate and preserve; 
hence man does not have to resort to mills for its prepara- 
tion. It is easy to prepare for market and opposes little or no 
resistance to the digestive organs, hence it is used among 
the sick. 

Chemistry: It is a carbohydrate and differs from other 
starches only in its morphology. Nitrogen rarely over one 
per cent. 

Disease causing: It does not, unless used singly too long 
and improperly prepared. 

Fed singly: Forty days according to American tests. 

Manifold: Not generally, save with sugar, molasses and 
nutmeg. 

Cures: Very much, especially in convalescence. 

Heart, eyes, bones, teeth, nails, hair, and skin: These 
were not impaired by forty days sole feeding. 

Heat: Has plenty heat producing elements to keep man 
warm. 

Force: Has enough for the milder efforts of the tropics. 
Doubtful if it could furnish enough to run an army, indeed 
sago is used in health as a dessert mainly. 

Climate: The lands where sago grows and is mainly 
eaten, are Cochin China, Japan, East and West Indies, 
Bahamas, Borneo, Celebes. Grows best in low moist places. 

Fashionable: Yes. 

Religion: Not mentioned in the Bible and not beloved by 
any cult. 

Fermentation: Being so digestible, it does not lodge so 
as to ferment. 

Parasites: Sago is prepared in our market and is not 
subject to parasites. 

Intemperance: Probably none. This is a good showing 
for sago. 



TAPIOCA 

From time immemorial tapioca has been used in South 
America whence it was introduced into the United States. 
It is said of tapioca (which is the starch from the Janipha 
Manihot) that it yields the largest weight of tubers to the 
acre, far exceeding other root crops, and it would appear 
that the United States Government would do well to promote 
its larger use, especially among those who are poor. There 
are two kinds of Janipha, sweet and bitter, both edible with 
proper preparation. 

Good: With a high reputation, has long been esteemed a 
delicacy for the sick. 

Bad: The bitter variety is bad from its prussic acid, but 
this being very volatile, is easily removed from the tubers 
grated into pulp. Indeed tapioca according to Cuzner is 
the mandioca or cassava starch, heated on iron to dissipate 
this very prussic acid. Cassava is the proper name, but 
tapioca is best known and safest after it has been heated 
as stated. 

Morphology: Little is known of it but the mullar (mill 
stone) starch grains, as it is a tuber like the white potato, 
it probably has like connective fibrous tissues and the 
gubernacula. 

Chemistry: Water 70.44, ash .57, oil and fat .38, glucose 
.28, sugar, 5.19, crude fibre 1.19, nitrogen 1.03, starch 21.24. 
Second quotation: Water 11.4, protein 0.4, fat 0.1, carbohy- 
drates 88.0, ash 0.1, calories 1650. 

Physiology: Is capable of sustaining all the body func- 
tions for forty days according to American tests. Here is its 
chief commendation and the reason why it is treated of here 
among the royal starch foods deserving the first considera- 
tion. 

Disease: Decidedly produces it, if the prussic acid is not 
removed. 

159 






l60 TAPIOCA 

Manifold: With milk and sugar in puddings. 

Cures: When the sick are ready for it, is very desirable. 

Brain: Fair. 

Heart: On the Andes, the natives of Peru have not been 
able to get on with tapioca unless they add coca, as they 
do also in mining, for without coca they would perish. (See 
The Care of the Aged.) Do not think tapioca is hearty, like 
whole wheat preparations. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails and hair .The preparatory process 
of tapioca not separating the mineral elements does not 
leave it impoverished ; still the small per cent, of ash does not 
augur well for these tissues and shows that there should be 
more investigation made as to this question ; this small per- 
centage may have operated against the general use of such a 
prolific plant as the Janipha. 

Intestines: Make them large, as with the eating of all 
starchy foods, more bulk is required than animal food and 
also more liable to ferment. 

How often used: Daily for forty days according to Amer- 
ican tests. 

Heat: Starch enough, especially in warm climates. 

Force: While it has enough to last for forty days nor- 
mally, there is hardly enough to fight the hard battles of 
life. 

Climate: A tropical food more than in temperate zones 

Fashion: The aesthetics of fashion do not seem to patro- 
nize tapioca; the people who eat it most are not of the 
bon-ton. 

Religion: Tapioca is not mentioned in the Bible or in the 
dictionary of classic Rome. The Latin Church allows it on 
fast days as it is largely starch. 

Builder of tissue: In a comparative degree. 

Skin: Good as far as known. 






TAPIOCA — DATES l6l 

Fermentation: Does not ferment in the alimentary canal 
very much because of its easy digestibility or it would be 
poor food for convalescents. 

Parasites: Tapioca is quite free from them, as it reaches 
our markets, because of its being separated by washing the 
grated pulp in many waters, letting the starch settle and 
pouring off the water; the starch is then heated on iron as 
before noted; this process must separate parasites, and if 
there are any, the heat must kill them. 

Intemperance. This has not yet been connected with 
tapioca. 

Adulteration of tapioca: Tapioca is so cheap that it would 
seem needless to sophisticate it, but Dr. Wood says a facti- 
tious tapioca is found in the shops consisting of small, 
smooth spherical grains and supposed to be prepared from 
potato starch and sold under the name of pearl tapioca; 
but if it can be raised so much cheaper than potatoes acre 
by acre, it would seem as if there was no money in substi- 
tuting potato starch for tapioca. 

DATES 

Fruit of the Phoenix Dactylifera: In some countries the 
date is the chief food. In Arabia "three date palm trees 
are enough to keep alive an Arab, wife and donkey for one 
year." — Prof. Paulus F. Reinsch. Indeed, the donkey and 
camel, also eat the stony pits of the date seeds. The trees 
grow to be one hundred feet high, bearing four hundred 
pounds of dates sometimes; are one of the most beautiful 
endogenous trees extant. They a r e noted in the earliest 
history. Other authorities say that dates are and have been 
almost the sole food of several nations. Dr. Worrall 
(medical missionary of the Reformed Dutch Church in 



I 62 DATES 

Arabia) states that there are some seventy-seven varieties, 
only three of which find their way here and these are the 
poorest. 

Mental kingdom: Certainly. The Arabs furnished the 
system of numerical notation, an arithmetic and geometry, 
and have a hard language to acquire ; the Egyptians furnish 
much mental food in their libraries. 

Good: Very. Bad: No, save from abuse in preparation 
and consumption. 

Condition of feeders: Dates must agree with nearly all 
classes of human feeders and with donkeys and camels., 
Their sweetness is also a charm, though we, who have used 
only the imported dates, know nothing of the gustatory 
delights of the date fresh from the trees. 

Morphology: The skin is tender and the substance soft 
ancj, digestible. The seed or stone is not eaten by man but by 
camels and donkeys. There is nothing in the edible part of 
dates in the form of tough cellulose tissues to prevent their 
digestion and assimilation. The cells, however, do resist 
digestion somewhat, as the bowel discharges of date eaters 
are well loaded with them, but the resistance is not in tough 
cell walls, but in the amber like substance of the cells which 
appear like hoarhound candy. 

Chemistry: The sugar is glucose, twenty-five per cent, 
of the drupe. There is a sugar made from the palm tree 
juice like maple sugar, this sugar being .the same as the 
liver makes. 

United States Government analysis, edible portion : water 
38.2, protein 2.9, fat .3, carbohydrates 35.9, crude fiber 21.3, 
ash 1.4, calories 1,130. As purchased : refuse 6.5, water 35.7, 
protein 2.7, fat 3, carbohydrates 33.6, crude fiber 19.6, ash 
1.3, calories 1,055. 

Physiology: They are a physiological food specially 
adapted to the climate where produced. 



DATES 163 

Disease producing /Possibly because of the carbohydrates, 
but the glucose is a good sugar to eat. One would think 
that the one-quarter sugar would produce trouble. People 
sick with albuminuria, fatty epithelia and casts, have by 
living on beef got rid of them, and when dates were eaten, 
the albuminuria, fatty epithelia and casts would return (as 
they do by putting common sugar into tea and coffee), but 
not in some instances and in others only slightly and to a far 
less degree than when cane sugar is used. This is 
probably because the date sugar is a glucose, the normal 
sugar of the liver making. Dr. Worrall states that blindness 
is very common in Arabia. It is possible that dates long 
used by generations may produce this, after the artificial 
cataract production in frogs and guinea pigs as before noted. 
Elephantiasis Arabica is also a local disease. Vast districts 
of Europeans live on black bread, who suffer as said before 
from the ergot poisoning, but nothing is said of the preva- 
lence of elephantiasis, so on this basis dates and black bread 
solely fed may be suspected. Men fed solely on wheat 
after forty-five days showed disease lesions. The position 
here taken is that no one food, save beef, can be lived on 
indefinitely — and there are exceptions to this rule — and that 
it is best for men to generally use those foods that have 
been proved to solely sustain life the longest. Dates suffer 
no impoverishment of mineral elements. This is certainly 
in their favor as a non-disease producing food. 

Sole food: Accounts vary. Dr. Worrall states that four 
dates fresh from the palm were enough for his dinner and 
that he lived on such feeding for three days in a desert. 
They are the sole food of caravans in Arabia, also of the 
boatmen on the river Euphrates. Prof. J. Solis-Cohen, M.D., 
said, when a schoolboy his mother used to give him money 
to buy a lunch of crackers, but that he spent it for dates 



164 DATES 

and found them more than an equivalent for a dinner. The 
senior writer has experimented with dates as a sole food for 
dinner in travelling ; he has repeatedly found them an ample 
dinner, indeed one-third pound sustaining*, more than any 
other food from the vegetable kingdom, wheat not excepted. 

Manifold food: They are usually eaten with black rye 
bread in Arabia; in America and Europe they are used as 
desserts. Confections are made from them. Dates mix 
well. j . i 

Cures: Dates have not been used for this save in the 
senior writer's personal experiments. He thinks they might 
be used more than they are, but with caution. 

Head and heart: Good. 

Eyes: Doubtful, from the prevalence of eye disease in 
Arabia; in fact, Dr. Worrall came home to study up 
ophthalmology because of its importance in Arabia. 

Bone, teeth, nails and hair: Further studv is needed on 
this point. 

How often used: Dates and black bread and sometimes 
wheat and rice are constant food for Arabs. 

Heat: Gives same abundantly. 

Force: Caravanmen, boatmen, camels and donkeys thrive 
on dates, which confer force enough for their occupations. 
Some force comes from the carbohydrates in dates, but not 
all. Dates, not impoverished in preparation, furnish nitrogen 
and other elements, as sulphur, lime and phosphorus in 
proper proportions to the carbohydrates. 

Climate: Tropical climate food. They stand' keeping in 
all climates well, protected with paraffine paper or other 
wraps to prevent evaporation, though they do best in modern 
cold storage. The deterioration is in drying up and the 
sugars being crystallized out as the water is evaporated. 
They do not mould like other drupe fruit, raspberries for 



DATES 165 

example. Our Government might in its new possessions 
raise all the dates needed in its armies, to say nothing of 
their being exported to America. 

Customs: Hearing that Turkish dates were the best, the 
late Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., LL.D., was written as to 
them. He said that no dates were raised in Turkey, that 
they were brought from lower Egypt and dubbed Turkish. 
Inquiries at the New York Turkish Consulate confirmed 
this, so, seeing "Tunis" dates advertised at a fruit stand 
on inquiry it was found they were put up in Paris and sold 
at twenty-five cents per box holding a pound, while ordinary 
dates wholesaled at four to five cents per pound ; these were 
grown in Tunis probably and had a better sale as put up in 
Paris. In Philadelphia, dates were found in pound boxes 
put up at Bozrah on the Persian Gulf ; they were evidently 
for this market as the imprints were in English and sold for 
ten cents per pound. Dates would be better if the boxes 
were made air tight, still the hygroscopic properties of these 
dates were such that a short exposure to a moist atmosphere 
restored to them a sufficiency of moisture. This was spe- 
cially the case at West Falmouth on Buzzards Bay in the 
summer when dates seemed to gather moisture from the 
air like the chloride of barium. 

Fashionable: But not to the extent of confectionery; it 
is to be wished that they were, as they are the least 
harmful of all sugar foods and it would be a boon 
to human life if dates could supplant cane sugar candies. 
To repeat, they have the proper amount of mineral food, 
are digestible, assimilable, less provocative of fatty ills, 
confer force, even to people who are subject to hard labor, 
and do not cloy like saccharin and sugars. Their use dates 
back to the earliest periods of man's existence, while white 
sugar is a modern invention, due solely to the dictates of 



1 66 DATES 

fashion, assuming that white is the aesthetic color for sugar 
as well as wheat flour. 

Religion: They are not prohibited by any religion as 
far as we know. Palms are much mentioned in the Bible 
as emblems of joy. No wonder, as Arab writers have 
given three hundred and sixty beneficial uses of the palm 
tree to man. 

Builder of tissue: Yes. 

Skin: As before noted, they do not protect against 
leprosy and elephantiasis, which diseases are often found 
among Arabs and not among us who eat dates simply as 
dessert. It is not probable that dates induce said diseases, 
but they do not confer immunity. At the same time, it 
should be said, that the hygiene of the savage races is not 
equal to the hygiene of the civilized (though the latter is 
not'perfect), and it may be that the Arabs' unsanitariness 
and the absence or diminution of animal food are the causes 
of said diseases. A digestible food as dates ought to be 
healthy skin food, used in proper quantities. 

Fermentation: As might be expected of the sugary juice 
of the palm tree, it has been fermented into alcoholic liquor. 
The sugar and protoplasm of the date, if not digested, 
ferment in the alimentary canal. But the notice of this is 
not enough to base much of an opinion upon; until more 
evidence is adduced to the contrary, we must say that dates 
are not liable to fermentation and must be regarded as a 
good food in this respect; dates act as a laxative when 
eaten alone or in excess with other foods ; this is due to 
fermentation, though the morphology of the feces do not 
show much colloid. This is a recommendation. Constipa- 
tion must be combatted by supplying the lack of force 
that causes it. Dates supply this nerve force as they are not 
impoverished as common flour is. 

Parasitism: We think not. They ripen on the palm 



DATES — APPLE 1 67 

tree without the care bestowed on wheat and other grain. 
There is a sorting of the qualities and sometimes a process 
in the drying, but the ripened dates are taken from the 
tree and immediately packed as a rule. The twenty-five 
per cent, of sugar protects from alcoholic yeasts and the 
drying still further protects. Sometimes dates are hard 
like half-cooked potatoes. Even the date hygroscopically 
moistened in the air of Buzzards Bay and kept uncovered 
would neither mould nor decay, while unleavened bread 
would in a few days in the same weather. There may be 
animal date parasites as on figs, but we have never met 
them. Dates are high on the list of foods free from para- 
sites. 

Intemperance: Not a great factor in same. 
"The oldest prescription: The oldest medical prescrip- 
tion in existence bears date of 4000 B.C. It was discovered 
in an Egyptian tomb, written on papyrus, and has been 
deciphered by an English professor. It bears evidence 
that it was intended for some bald-headed Egyptian and 
reads as follows : 

Parts. 

Dog's paw (calloused part) 1 

Dates 1 

Donkey hoofs 1 

"Boil the whole in oil and rub the scalp actively with 
the mixture." — Journal New Jersey State Medical Society. 
June, 1906. 

APPLE 

Among the Romans, supper was finished off (dessert) 
by apples, which was an elastic word like "corn" and 
included oranges, lemons, citrons, etc. The word apple 
comes from the Anglo-Saxon ; the apple tree is one of the 



I 68 APPLE 

Roses. Botanical name is Pyrus Malus ; the latter is the 
Latin for apple. Apples were known in Solomon's time ; 
are largely a staple food of modern civilization. They con- 
fuse science and show that the common people are more 
discriminating than the botanists. The Standard Dictionary 
gives a list of three hundred and twenty-four varieties, few 
of which are in the botanies, where they are all Pyrus 
Malus, and no attention paid to the difference, for example, 
between a Baldwin and a Spitzenberg or a Nonesuch. 
Apples are much exported to Europe ; cold storage preserves 
them finely for market ; are most largely raised in the 
Western States. 

Kingdoms: Vegetable and mental, for they affect the 
mind and senses. 

Good: But not in the sense of wheat, barley, rye, rice 
and dates. 

Bad: Yes, when decayed, overgrown, fermented, worm- 
eaten, rotten, used as sole food or without common sense. 

Condition of eaters: They are for well people as relishes, 
appetizers, and not specially for the sick, save in conva- 
lescence. 

Morphology: The beautiful skin is not easy to digest; 
but the substance is made of protoplasm in cells which are 
compressed together to a moderate degree of hardness in 
the unripe and to a limited softness in the ripe ; these cells 
have a nutrition, that is affected by pressure, even after 
being picked and put in barrels ; this is shown by the facets 
formed by the pressure of the barrel head ; the contour is 
flattened, the skin is blackened as if there were rot beneath, 
the touch is hard like a board in marked contrast to the 
rest of the apple ; microscopical examination shows this 
hardness to be due to amyloid or starch-like bodies , the 
interesting part of this is, that amyloid bodies are found 



APPLE 169 

in the first stages of fatty degeneration in man, which ill 
is due, according to the English idea, to a retarded and 
impeded circulation; the barrel head must have retarded 
and impeded the osmosis of the ultimate apple cells by 
pressure, so that here we have an artificial production 
of apple fatty degeneration ; besides some specimens showed 
globules and granules of oil, thus completing the said proof. 
There are no firm, tough, connective fibrous tissues in the 
apple substance, so that the raw, ripe apple can be eaten 
and digested, while the process of cooking breaks up the 
cells into homogeneous masses still more easy to digest; 
further, raw, unripe apples are made edible by the changes 
brought about in cooking. 

Chemistry : Apples are mostly carbohydrate food like 
starch, glue, gelatine, sugar. The protoplasm of the cells 
change (as seen) into amyloid and fat. The basis is a 
sugar, of which the juice is so full, that it ferments into 
cider with a percentage of alcohol 5.81 to 9.5. In the 40's 
the senior writer heard Ralph Waldo Emerson in a lecture 
say : "Apples are great chemists to produce such fruit from 
the soil and air." 

Pippin, edible portion: water 85.3, protein .6, fat o.I, 
carbohydrates 12.7, crude fiber 1.1, ash 0.2, calories 270. 
See also p. 124. 

Apples must be regarded as a sugar food, hence not to 
be used before convalescence. The malic acid, C4, H6, O5, 
is sweetish and not sufficient to build up normal tissue. 

Physiology: Used in proper proportions, apples are a 
biological food, easy to assimilate but not very nutritious. 
They are rather relishes and are anti-scorbutic. They are 
very reproductive, but bear best every other year. The 
Baldwin is the best apple. They have always been a 
favorite fruit. 



I/O APPLE 

Diseases: In excess, they cause obesity and fatty ills, 
diarrhoea, fibroid thickenings of intestines, catarrhs from 
the reflex action of carbonic and other gases — alcohol to 
partially intoxicate. {See Fermentation.) 

Sole food: We do not know, but it cannot be very long. 

Manifold food: As dessert, emergency food and in com- 
bination with sugar and other foods in sauces, pies, pud- 
dings, dumplings, apple butter, etc. 

Cure: Relieves constipation by producing diarrhoea to 
get rid of fermenting matter ; this is not ideal ; the con- 
stipation should be relieved by increasing the amount of 
nerve force. They also come in after the seven royal vege- 
table kingdom foods and sparingly. They are too sugary 
to cure much of themselves. In scurvy, apples are fine 
and are preventative. They are good food for horses and 
cattle whose digestive organs are better prepared for their 
exclusive use than man's. Cider and vinegar are good for 
liver complaints in some people; the vinegar acts on the 
clogged livers while yet in others it hurts. 

Head: Hardly a first-rate head food, as they do not have 
mineral elements enough. {See Fermentation.) 

Heart: Are not hearty food, though the heart may get 
on with them, if not eaten to the fermentation point. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails, hair: Apples alone do not have 
such an abundance of mineral elements to make such. 

How often used: In the season, with other foods, right 
along if eater is healthy. 

Action on intestines: Tendency to make them larger by 
fermentation distension and partially paralyzing them by 
the gases. The green apple colic in the small boy needs no 
description here. 

Heat: The fact that they are relishes more than food 
shows that heat, while necessary, is not everything as food. 



APPLE 171 

Some physiologists regard the heat of the body, aside from 
slow combustion, to be due to phyto-chemical actions, as 
when lime and water are combined in the mortar bed; but 
the force does not come from the heat ; the heat comes from 
the force more often; exercise warms and heats by the 
very expenditure of potential force made actual ; a man 
running a race does it by the force expended, but he could 
not run if frozen, so that heat does predispose to the 
exercise of force and to the functions of life, but it is a 
mistake to lay the production of force to heat ; it is the 
other way in actual energy ; heat is a form of motion as 
Rumford pointed out, and carbohydrates furnish heat in 
combination with oxygen of the air ; nitrogen has very 
much to do with the force as we have heretofore noted. 
If heat furnishes the force, why not feed an army on apples? 
. Force: As relishes are useful as oil to the machine, but 
not to afford power. 

Climate: Apples are found on all the Continents; they 
flourish best in temperate zones. 

Customs: Have made apples a dessert as in ancient Rome 
when supper was begun with eggs. Ethics have not been 
so hard upon apples as on common flour. Probably apple pie 
is the one most generally in favor. 

Aesthetics: The bright rosy appearance is one great reason 
of their fashionable use for dessert, while the palate music is 
very attractive and appetizing. Red apples and green leaves 
are so tempting to the tastes of boys that they cannot resist 
stealing them even in the most protected places in New York 
City. 

Religion The Bible tells us that it was the aesthetic sight 
of the apple that overcame Eve ; but apples have nothing 
to do with religion now save the sin of stealing and thus 
violating the eighth commandment, 



172 APPLE 

Builder of tissue: As we have seen, they are not compe- 
tent to build good tissues, and as they are largely carbohy- 
drates, they make fat. 

Skin: Has no bad effect save as to increasing the fat 
underneath and possibly changing it from solid fat to oils. 

Fermentation: Have long been known to ferment in the 
alimentary canal when lodged. As said before, apple juice 
easily ferments exposed to the air which is more or less 
full of the alcohol and vinegar plants. No doubt these 
yeasts are eaten with the apples and with other foods and 
add their strength to those that are in the alimentary canal 
all the while. When cider is distilled, cider brandy results 
which is so powerful as to have the local name of "J erse > r 
lightnfng," and no wonder, as apples are more fermentative 
than the grains which whiskey is made from. (See Alcohol 
and Fermentation.) 

Parasites: Are subject to rot which is caused by a very- 
delicate and minute mycelium of a fungus. It almost eludes 
inspection, but the mycelia environ the cells and cause the 
protoplasm to soften and turn black. It is probable that the 
absence of suitable soil food is one cause, giving a weak 
power of resistance to the parasitic fungus whose spores are 
probably always present; a wet season helps the fungus as 
fungi are killed by the sunlight. Then insects deposit their 
eggs in the growing apple and the larvse are the worms 
familiar to apple eaters. The alcohol and vinegar yeast 
that collect in the skin are also vegetable parasites ; they are 
useful in that apples that are left over are removed by being 
turned into alcohol and vinegar to be dissipated in the atmos- 
phere. Caterpillars and canker worms interfere with the 
production of apples, sometimes destroying the crop and 
giving man a hard fight to save this highly aesthetic fruit. 
In this matter the labors of the United States Department of 
Agriculture should be mentioned with highest praise. 



APPLE CELERY I 73 

Intemperance: The amount of alcohol is so small in cider 
that drunkenness is not often seen from it. Sweet cider 
is used more on farms than in the liquor saloons. Hard 
cider is good for the liver in some cases, but this is a medical 
matter. The daily drinking of cider is not healthy. Indeed 
when we consider how vinegar has ravaged the human race 
(and cider vinegar is the most used) a terrible accusation 
can be made against apple juice. 

CELERY 

It it food: Yes and no. It is a relish, a light assimilable 
food, but not of itself enough to support life ; it promotes 
appetite, zest and a desire to "lick again" substantial food, 
inciting the spirit or desire for said food which otherwise 
might cloy. It is named here as it is almost the only food 
from the vegetable kingdom that is suitable for most cases of 
chronic disease treatment, hence also its great value to the well. 

Vegetable kingdom: An herb of the Parsley family, men- 
tioned in the old Roman writings ; also used a long time in 
France ; generally eaten raw ; formerly the root was eaten ; 
now the stems are blanched by heaping the earth around, 
which is done also to make them tender and crisp. 

Mental kingdom: Certainly, as it charms the mind 
through the eye, the palate, and its digestibility. 

Good and bad: The test of ages has shown it to be good, 
including modern observations in the morphology of the 
blood and secretions ; in excess patients show effects in the 
deterioration of the physical signs revealed by the microscope 
and chemistry. But this is no objection, as common sense 
confers wisdom enough to guide its use. 

Condition of feeders: The strong point in the favor of 
celery is that the sickest people can partake of it as a rule ; 
it exceeds all other vegetable kingdom foods in this respect. 



I 74 CELERY 

Morphology: Its structure is made up of soft tissues 
whose crispness depends on the water in the cells ; the fibers 
are not tough but fragile and run longitudinally ; their cellu- 
lose appears plainly in the morphology of the bowel dis- 
charges of the eaters. If the stalks have not been properly 
covered by moist earth the texture is dense and hard to 
digest; this process is called ''bleaching," as the chlorophyll 
cells do not develop away from sunlight and thus the fleshy 
whiteness of the stalks with a tinge of yellow seen en masse ; 
there is nothing ghastly in the whiteness to repel, but it is 
more like alabaster, thus keeping up its character as a 
relish. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: refuse 
20, water 75.6, protein 0.9, fat 0.1, carbohydrates 2.6, ash 
0.8, calories 70. It has not much sugar and hence its great 
applicability. The seeds have an active medical principle 
and aromatic oil, while the same oil is present to a less 
extent in the stalks and give it its appetizing power. 

Physiology: Celery acts on the body physiology by 
stimulating nerve action that controls the digestion; its 
mildness and surety are great recommendations ; its aromatic 
oil acts on the nerve centers ; we know only the results 
enough to repeat that celery is a physiological food of high 
character properly used. 

Disease: Used to excess, it will turn restored normal 
morphologies of blood and urine back again to abnormal, 
but there must be a gross violation of directions to do this. 
Celery does not destroy tissues in fatty degeneration, but it 
does not have elements enough to sustain the wear and tear 
of active life, and yet its agreeing with diseased conditions 
so well is a great commendation. Celery has been supposed 
to cause epileptic fits or aggravate them. This might be 
from over-use. (Parr.) 

Sole food: Not positively known but not long. It feeds 



CELERY 175 

ducks right along, but they get other food, and must eat 
many infusoria that are in the waters they inhabit, as shown 
by the movements of the bills and their peculiar sifting 
powers. 

Multiple food: Yes, though usually eaten raw and not in 
combination save in salads. It is sometimes baked or stewed. 

Cures: It certainly does and must be regarded by physi- 
cians as one of the kings of the vegetable kingdom. It can- 
be used before wheat, rye or rice in the treatment of 
advanced cases of chronic disease. This is saying a great 
deal. 

Head: By exciting the sympathetic nerves the voluntary 
head nerves are helped. Acting negatively it is a good 
brain food, as nothing disturbs the cerebral voluntary 
nervous system so much as difficult stomachic and intestinal 
digestion. 

Heart: So far as it furnishes nerve food it is good for the 
heart, like many aromatic diffusible stimulants, but not 
equal to wheat or beef. Cardiation could not be kept on 
celery as sole food, but as one that makes us "lick again." 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails and hair: Not good except indi- 
rectly as a relish, as it has too much carbohydrates. 

How often used: Very often in proper way as a relish. 

Heat: Some, but not enough for cold weather. It may 
produce heat by stirring up the digestive functions to greater 
work than otherwise, or it may act as an "oil to the machine'' 
and thus make the body systemic run easier and saving up 
the forces, heat, etc., for use in other work. 

Force: None, save indirectly or reflexly. As it promotes 
the appetite for meat, wheat and other forceful or hearty 
foods then it must promote actual and potential energy, 
but much as we esteem celery we would not undertake to do 
a hard day's work on it alone. Possibly in the aromatic 
oil of celery there may be the dynamic nitrogen. 



I 76 CELERY 

Climate: Temperate zones are for celery; most used in 
cold weather, though eaten all the year around; it does not 
stand keeping in warm weather, but in the winter, celery 
is sent in barrels all over the United States from the Dutch 
settlements in Michigan. 

Customs: Have made it a fashionable food, not seen much 
on the tables of the poor, though it. is easily raised and well 
might be. 

Aesthetic: In the gracing of the tables of banquets, 
among the glassery, the cutlery, the gold and silver plate, 
the art of the confectioner and the general architectural 
production of the cuisine, celery is never out of place. The 
mere sight makes the mouth to water with the salivary and 
parotid secretions that said glands pour forth preparatory to 
digestion, even before a particle of food is eaten. Then the 
mild, aromatic, nutty order is also music to the nerves of 
smell and adds to the excitation of the whole body systemic 
to be ready for its aesthetic food. 

Religion: Celery is allowed on fast days in the Latin 
Churches ; otherwise its relations to the world's religions are 
not marked. On Thanksgiving, always accompanies the 
indispensable roast turkey. 

Builder of tissues: Not directly, but indirectly, for its 
use causes more tissue building food to be eaten and assimi- 
lated. 

Skin: No special action. 

Fermentation: None if properly used and when im- 
properly used it does not ferment badly, hence its capability 
of use in cases of disease ; there is not much yeast in it, or if 
there is, it does not take hold; it always resists quite well 
the action of the alimentary canal yeasts; this, is probably 
due to the little sugar in its composition. 

Parasites: Not many if properly washed and cleaned; 



CELERY OAT I J J 

rather than decay like grapes, it wilts and becomes flabby, 
loses its crisp bite and is not beautiful. The great trouble is 
in its not being properly bleached, thus making it tough, 
rankly medicinal and unaesthetic. It may be boiled in water 
or steamed, as we do other vegetables, which raw are not 
digestible, but cooking destroys the tine qualities as food. 

Intemperance: Not very often and when existing, is of 
a mild type. It must be used with common sense as there is 
danger in all foods of eating to excess. 

OAT 

Virgil mentions it and it has been used for horses and 
man so long that that its place of origin is unknown. In 
modern times it has been particularly the food of the Scotch 
and the North Irish. Oats afford sufficient nourishment to 
the Highlanders who are the most vigorous people in the 
world. (Parr.) But this may be in spite, not on account 
of oats. "John Mayn in the first book of his history of 
Scotland contends much for the wholesomeness of Oaten 
bread ;" Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. To-day adver- 
tisements abound for prepared oat foods as superior to 
wheat, the royal grain. Parr puts oats as inferior to rice and 
wheat. The conventional idea is the opposite. In our 
opinion oats make work for the physicians in coughs, colds, 
catarrhs, all of which indicate a lowered state of vitality 
among indoor eaters. Outdoor eaters in mountain air where 
exercise is essential to life keep the downward peristalsis 
in motion and make very much more out of oats than seden- 
tary people; if their oaten meal does not digest, it is not 
retarded in the alimentary canal to ferment. 

Organic and inorganic: There is more silica in oat meal 
than in wheat ; there is less gluten, hence its dough does not 



178 OAT 

readily aerate (vesiculate), is heavier and harder to digest; 
yeast does not readily raise oat dough and hence the heavy, 
soggy bread. This is due to an excess of inorganic matter. 

Vegetable kingdom: Avena Sativa, a grass, two to four 
feet high with an excess of mineral matter as compared with 
wheat. 

Mental kingdom: It has influence on brains; the Scotch 
are a brainy people, and then on the other hand its hard 
digestion produces acute ataxia, dizziness, dreams, false 
ideas, bad temper, reeling as if drunken; catarrhs of the 
head produced by oats are subversive of intellectual and 
mental capacities. To test this let a doubter live on oat 
meal, as sole solid food for ten days if he can, and then 
bring up his objections. 

Good: For Highlanders in mountain air, work and life; 
for horses and cattle and for sellers of oat meal 

Bad: For those who are indoor workers, mountain and 
forest airless, who have a plenty of wheat food to fall back 
on which costs less, is far better and has been proven by long 
civilized and uncivilized use to be the king of grains ; it is 
bad to use a food when better and cheaper food can be had 
which can be made into peerless bread, easily masticated, 
digested and assimilated (without gases of fermentation), 
that takes less force to introduce into the system and when 
there, gives more force to use in internal and external life. 

Condition of feeders: As already seen, oat meal has been 
eaten successfully by the North Irish and Scotch. They 
thrive in spite of it. It was told in Glasgow that the weak 
babes died on oat meal, when the tough ones survived. This 
weeding process may explain the hardness of the High- 
landers on oats, but it is against the political economy which 
strives to save all lives possible and lower the death rate of 
the commonwealth ; as has been hinted, outdoor severe labor 
in mountain or forest air confers a digestive power ; open-air 



OAT 179 

laborers can digest oat meal, but there is evidence to show 
that it is a very poor food for common mankind in civiliza- 
tion. It takes a very strong constitution to thrive on oats. 

Morphology: Common white oat: I, cooking showed by 
polarizer; 2, germ like wheat only larger and frailer; 3, 
aleurone cells rounder than those of wheat ; separate with 
large clear interspaces, one empty like an Arcella ; 4, another 
aleurone set of cells, only cuboid and smaller ; 5, large masses 
of clear protoplasm ; 6, oil globules ; 7, shovel shaped paren- 
chymatous cells; 8, tegument; 9, starch grains were mostly 
1 -3000th inch in diameter ; 10, ordinary sized starch. 

Chemistry. See page 124. The silica is present in 
unusual quantities. The gluten is small as compared with 
wheat. Prof. J. P. Norton's analysis gives 2.24 per cent, 
sugar, 6.55 per cent. oil. Vogel gives 8.25 per cent, sugar and 
2 per cent. oil. The decomposition of oats in the alimentary 
canal is largely due to silica, oil and sugar in excess ; the 
last fermenting readily and the whole hard to assimilate. 
Horses and cattle contend with oats better than man. Let 
them have them. 

Physiology: American experiments made on four men 
by feeding oat meal porridge, with butter, pepper and salt 
used as relishes resulted at the end of eight days in flatulence, 
constipation, windy stools. 

Disease: These experiments further continued up to 
thirty days; the constipation, flatulence and colic were pro- 
gressively increased, sore bowels, heads affected by dull and 
morbid dreams, ears ringing and vision defective, prickling 
feet and hands with later numbness and difficult walking, 
palpitation of heart, difficult breathing, swollen glands, 
fever, urine scanty and finally the constipation changed to 
diarrhoea. {See Fermentation.) 

Sole food: Less than eight days physiologically, thirty 
days pathologically. 



I 80 OAT 

Manifold food: No, save with water, milk, butter and 
salt. 

Action on blood and secretions: The sick having had the 
normal morphologies restored, oats will devolute it back 
again ; oats are a predisposing cause of "colds ;" they are the 
breaking up plow in the fallow field to make it suitable for a 
crop; no one sows grain on an unplowed field, so drafts of 
cold air on a human soil that has not been prepared by the 
breaking down plows of bad food, or good food, badly used, 
have no effect. Oats cause catarrhs of the air passages by 
weakening them through dyspepsia and cold air drafts 
do the rest. There are strong constitutions that cope with 
the bad effects of oats. 

Cures: Not in our experience. 

Head, heart , eyes, intestines: See paragraph Disease. 

Hair, nails, teeth and bones: No doubt these may be good 
in constitutions existing in spite of oats, but man should live 
on account of his surroundings. 

Heat: The fever noted under Disease was not healthy 
but due to nature's violent efforts to expel an irritating food. 

Force: The experiments noted under Disease show that 
on the tenth day the sole oat eating men were tired and 
well they might have been from the alimentary canal dis- 
turbances and disease using up their force, so that they had 
hardly enough to run their bodies. Here is the great objec- 
tion to oats ; they take so much force to digest that they 
cannot confer force equivalent to that from wheat; it also 
explains the statement that the tough Scotch babes only 
survive. People can get force to contend with outside obsta- 
cles, but when inside obstacles are added it takes the toughest 
to live. 

Climate: Mountain air is the only clime for oats. Cus- 
tom: Peculiarly Scotch. 



OAT PEACH l8l 

Aesthetic: Not much, for oats rarely ever figure on the 
menu of banquets. Religious aspects: None. 

Builders of tissues: In those tough enough to digest them 
they are good builders, but not equal to wheat. 

Skin: Good, if digested. 

Fermentation: Notoriously fermentative ; said American 
experiments read as if the men were intoxicated, and had 
acute locomotor ataxia, another name for drunkenness. 

Parasites: A dealer says that oats used for horses are 
usually not kiln dried, but those used for oat meal are ; were 
it not for this latter the meal would sour. 

Intemperance: Do not think that people would eat oats 
as rum ; it has been said that the Scotch were of necessity 
forced to eat oats ; this, if true, looks little like intemper- 
ance. Some think an abdomen full of food is a type of 
dietetic bliss, but the foregoing shows too much distention 
and disaster. Perhaps the lack of food in oats make Scotch 
whiskey so much prized in Scotland, and thus it tends to 
intemperance. 

PEACH 

It is largely used raw and cooked in America, where they 
are said to be in best perfection ; the consumption is enor- 
mous ; came from Persia originally and the name of the tree 
shows its origin, Persicum Malum, Amygdalus Persica. 
They are mentioned by Pliny and must have been known to 
the Romans. Wood and Bache say peaches are among the 
most grateful and wholesome of our summer fruits, and 
people endorse this. In the treatment of Bright's disease 
when the urine may have been brought to normal, peaches 
are allowed. 

Organic: vegetable kingdom: This goes without saying. 



I 82 PEACH 

Good: Yes. Bad: When eaten before or much after 
ripeness or if undeveloped or preyed on by parasites, or out 
of season. They do not keep well and are liable to decay. 
We write of normal peaches mostly. 

Condition of eaters: Peaches agree with the normal man, 
also can be partaken of by the sick in moderate quantities; 
their beauty and blushing grace stimulates a clogged, weak 
or flagging appetite so that they pave the way for more solid 
foo4, which before the peaches were eaten could not be taken. 
They agree with all ages above the toothless babe. 

Morphology: The tissues are when ripe, soft, luscious, 
easily separated, digestible ; the seed is a large, dense cellular 
organ that is commonly called a stone; the cellulose tissues 
about the stone are dense ; the substance of the peach is made 
up of large, irregular oblong cells of protoplasm, colored 
and uncolored, with spiral tissue ducts for circulation. The 
skin is like felt; inside dense connective fibrous tissues are 
found, while the outside is covered with beautiful long 
wooly hairs in great numbers. Between the hair bases are 
stomata for air circulation. There are also glands to secrete 
the perfume, bouquet or aroma which in a full and normally 
ripe peach appeals to the spirit through the organs of smell 
in a volatile oil comparable to the attar of roses. 

Chemistry: Prussic acid is found in the kernel meat and 
in the leaves, flowers and bark of peach trees ; the paren- 
chyma is rich in sugar which is in the same group as liver 
and muscle sugar ; the mineral matter is small ; it is inter- 
esting in this connection that the prussic acid is not found 
in the peach substance eaten by man, as the same is a deadly 
poison. 

Physiology: They are a physiological food in natural 
condition and dried. Physicians rarely, if ever, have cases 
to treat who have been made ill from eating peaches, if 
sound and properly eaten. They agree with the intestinal 



PEACH 183 

and stomachic glands when fed in season; the bowel dis- 
charges show they are easy to assimilate, leaving little debris ; 
no substance cells to run through the bowels ; in this respect 
they stand at the head of all food, for wheat and beef often 
pass through partly or not at all digested. Of course the 
skins, or spiral ducts and hairs go through unchanged, being 
made up of cellulose, which resist bowel changes and are 
harmless unless they enclose and envelop soluble food, so it 
cannot be got at in the downward peristalsis. The aromatic 
oil of the peach acts as a relish. 

Disease: Peaches not over-eaten and sound, do not pro- 
duce sickness, much less organic disease to which pathology 
is much restricted, but here we use it in the broad sense. 
They are not destructive of tissues, as conventionally used. 

Sole food: We do not know. A problem for our Govern- 
ment specially, as it has done so much for the peach culture. 

We would say that peaches could not be solely lived on 
long. 

Manifold food: Yes, generally as dessert, but their large 
sale from street, railroad and fruit stands, show they are 
eaten much between meals as refreshment or emergency 
food. They are also used dried to make pies or sauce to be 
eaten with the more substantial bread and meat of a meal 
as appetizers ; but usually they are eaten raw, because 
naturally they are soft enough for easy digestion, and cook- 
ing dissipates the perfume or natural cologne by the heat; 
also removes the coolness of peaches, which is so grateful 
during hot weather. Still we must class it as a manifold 
food, because while generally eaten quickly, it is ushered 
into the stomach with other foods. 

Cures: Preserved peaches come under this head; eaten 
by a sick man who was progressing nicely, the next day he 
had a head cold, with sneezing which lasted but a short 
time, and disturbance of the heart at night. The sugar did 



1 84 PEACH 

this by fermenting in the bowels. They have a place in 
convalescence as they promote appetite and neutralize some 
digestive disorders. They act on the sick glands as if they 
were what said glands craved.* 

Head: Good when eaten in season and properly; tend to 
sooth and satisfy the bowels and thus help the brain indi- 
rectly. 

Heart: Likewise; the volatile oil and a non-volatile oil 
that .corresponds to oenanthic ether and oil of wine, such as 
are found in fruit essences, strengthen the heart, as the oil of 
wine is a most admirable heart stimulant ; it is an essential 
of Hoffman's Anodyne, a remedy which was gotten up 
before 1720, and is about the only thing that now remains 
of all the inventions of its inventor. Some peaches remind 
of the nitrite amyl used for the heart. 

Eyes: Good for them as they digest well and are not too 
sweet. 

Bone, teeth, nails and hair: Not specially good from 
absence of mineral salts. 

Intestines: Not being very fermentative they agree well. 

How often used: Throughout the season daily, unless 
some idiosyncrasy prevents ; but not daily out of season in 
preserves or in cans, mainly because of the excess of cane 
sugar used to keep them. 

Heat: Though a cooling fruit, their carbohydrates must 
furnish heat fortunately in small quantities. 

Force: Furnish some force directly and indirectly by 
saving it through the digestibility. An army fed on peaches 
alone would not endure marches or battle long. 

Climate: Peaches grow best in temperate climes. Being 
perishable they are consumed mostly raw and comparatively 

* Here it may be said, strong cravings of appetite (not alcoholic) must not 
be disregarded by medical attendants. They are sometimes nature's calls, even 
though unreasonable they may be. Peaches can be allowed when craved, in al- 
most any acute diseases in moderation. 



PEACH 185 

near where they grow, save when put into cold storage, fixed 
or moving, where they can be kept good for a long period 
of time. Are not a good food for cold climate. 

Natural: Yes. Fortunately, customs and ethics have not 
crucified them to serve some whim. They are to be prized 
for this ; foods that are natural should have the preference, 
other things being equal. 

Aesthetics and fashions: The soft, velvety blooming 
peach is an emblem of peerless beauty. Here peaches 
trench on to the spiritual kingdom and stir the soul. There 
is no fashionable entertainment of the musics of the ear, eye, 
taste and smell in which peaches may not have a place in 
their season. 

Religion: They are not mentioned in the Bible nor for- 
bidden on fast days in the Latin Church. 

Builders of tissue: Fat, connective, fibrous or glue tissue, 
but not those requiring much mineral matters. 

Skin: Peaches have no effect on skin, save to keep it sup- 
plied by furnishing fat to the sebaceous follicles. 

Fermentation: Peaches are perishable with decay that 
follows, after ripeness, in other words they rot and perish by 
the alcohol and vinegar yeasts. 

Parasites: Yeasts and the Puccinia, a fungus which 
attacks the peach tree, constitute the chief vegetable hangers 
on. Peaches also suffer from insects as bees, hornets, wasps, 
and from birds as animal parasites. 

Intemperance: Never heard of any one being poisoned 
by them. This is worth note because of the prussic acid in 
stone and other parts of the plant. We must qualify our 
statement as to peaches being wholly a natural food ; peach 
cider in the South is largely made by cutting up the fruit and 
running it through a press ; this cider is much sweeter than 
that of the apple and people easily are drunken on it ; a peach 
brandy is distilled from peach cider, which is much more 



1 86 PEACH — TOMATO 

intoxicating than whiskey ; peach vinegar is not so good as 
apple vinegar because it is too sweet; it might suit for the 
table but not for pickles ; it is necessary to make peach cider 
immediately because of decay. 

TOMATO 

The tomato is very commonly used in the United States 
in their season raw and cooked; at other times canned. 
Tomatoes or Lycopersicum esculutum belong to the Solanum 
or deadly night-shade family of which Pliny mentions only 
the Bitter Sweet or Dulcamera. Potatoes or earth apples, 
as the Dutch call them, are included in this family. South 
America is the place of origin of the tomato, next sent to 
Europe during the early part of the eighteenth century, 
where they were introduced as "Love Apples ;" they are ber- 
ries corresponding to the potato berry. 

Relation to mineral kingdom: Not much, as ash is in 
minimum. 

Mental kingdom: Tomatoes are here, as their physical 
aesthetic beauty attracts the eye and their coolness and zest 
affects the mind through the palate ; if they were less 
aesthetic they would be less eaten. The name "Love Apple" 
suggests it place in the mental kingdom. 

Good: When used as a relish in disease or secondary 
food in health. Bad: When used intemperately or in an 
unhealthy condition. 

Condition of feeders: The sick use them as a relish, as 
the sight of tomatoes may stir their souls to desire to eat ; 
the well may use them freely. 

Morphology: The substance of ripe, normal tomatoes 
is made up of soft intra-cellular tissue elements, so tender 
that they may be eaten raw like a common apple ; generally 
there are empty cavities lined with cell substances like jelly 



TOMATO 187 

or mother of vinegar; deeper are tough ceils and fibers, 
while the skin is not so tough but that it can be eaten with 
moderate impunity. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: water 
94.3, protein 0.9, fat 04, carbohydrates 3.9, ash 0.5, calories 
105; mainly carbohydrates and minerals (water). 

Physiology: They digest readily and furnish anti-scor- 
butic matter to prevent scurvy, but their main use is a relish 
and to give an aesthetic setting to the table and the eye. 

Disease: It has been claimed in England that the increase 
of cancer was caused by eating tomatoes raw and canned; 
this is not the experience in America; taking the defini- 
tion that cancer is "tissue under mob law" there might 
be some foundation for this statement, for if the tissues are 
not under the unwritten law of our constitutions that makes 
us develop normally, then we must expect abnormal develop- 
ment or death and the tissues developed out of place and 
proportion as found in cancer; the multiple form of cancer 
elements show that its tissues are like mobs in the body 
politic ; if people lived on tomatoes largely we should expect 
disease of the tissues, because tomatoes have not food ele- 
ments enough to maintain the body in health, but we should 
not single out tomatoes above other relish foods, for we 
should consider that asparagus fed solely would cause cancer 
or some other disease of tissue substance in a few months. 
But if tomatoes are used as a relish they would not so 
impoverish the biological powers of the body systemic as to 
allow their charges to rule over them as in a mob. When 
we consider that cancer was known to the ancients and 
treated of by Hippocrates, Galen, Paulus iEgineta, Cullen, 
Pearson and others, thus prevalent long before tomatoes 
were eaten, it is rather late in the day to single them out 
as its chief cause in England, any more than as we have 
suggested. 



1 88 TOMATO 

Sole food: We know of no experiment; probably not 
longer than ten days. 

Multiple food: Tomatoes are for the main part eaten 
alone raw with pepper, vinegar, salt and oil ; they are also 
cooked, usually in water and flavored with butter, etc. 
Tomato soup is made of stewed tomatoes in clear beef 
stock. Tomato sauce or ketchup or catsup is a relish mixed 
with spices, originally an East India pickle. South Sea 
Island cannibals used to eat them with human flesh. They 
are generally used in connection with other foods, so they are 
sure to be manifold when in the stomach. 

Cures: Only as a relish or as anti-scorbutic in scurvy 
and hemorrhagica purpurea. 

Head: Hardly, save as a relish to stimulate the appetite 
and desire for food. Not much nerve food in them beyond 
this. 

Heart: Not hearty, save in a spiritual point of view 
through the eye and palate ; still their absence of easy fermen- 
tation makes them a desirable relish in heart diseases which 
are better treated the less gas there is in the alimentary 
canal. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nail, hair: No, have not mineral 
elements enough for good work here. 

Intestines: On the whole good, as they do not ferment 
readily. 

Heat: Abound in heat, though not enough for cold 
weather. 

Force: No, save as a relish, causing to "lick again" force 
conferring food. 

Climate: Hot and temperate climes are the places for 
tomatoes, save as catsup. 

Natural: Custom has not decreed tomatoes to be deprived 
of some of their most important constituents. 

Aesthetics and fashion: Their redness is very beautiful, 



TOMATO — PRUNE — PLUM 1 89 

as whiteness is with flowers; the fashionable menus include 
tomatoes; their decided color makes a fine contrast to the 
whiteness of the table linen and silver. There are white 
tomatoes which contrast well with other foods, but they are 
rare. 

Religion: Not mentioned in the Bible, nor are they 
tabooed by any religion as far as known. 

Fermentation: Tomatoes are not bad fermenters in the 
alimentary canal. The. digestive organs are generally able 
to cope with them and they are not so often as other foods 
left to be preyed on by the alcohol and vinegar yeasts. It 
is probable also that tomatoes exosmose through the walls 
of mouth, gullet and stomach so readily that there is not 
much of them left to be digested in the intestines. 

Parasites: Animal parasites : (i) fruit worm, bole worm ; 
(2) tomato sphinx, five spotted hawk moth (Protoparce 
celeus) ; (3) its larvae tomato worm that devours the foliage; 
(4) another tomato worm like (3). As to vegetable para- 
sites, tomatoes resist them until they are over-ripe, thus 
exemplifying the general law of death dealing vegetable- 
parasites the vitality of whose hosts must be lowered ere 
they can be preyed on. 

Intemperance: Never knew of a case with tomatoes either 
in eating or in intestinal brewing of alcohol. Relishes are 
not apt to be used intemperately, as they cloy and clog the 
appetite. 

PRUNE— PLUM 

Plums dried are prunes. They are mentioned by Virgil. 
Come from Asia Minor it is said ; in modern times from the 
south of France ; but now better prunes are from California, 
where they are cured by the climate. In France, prunes are 
partly dried by artificial heat, completed by the air. Are 



I9O PRUNE — PLUM 

extensively used as food. The undried or raw plums arc 
much eaten in their season. On the east coast of New 
England there are many beach plums, small and rather 
bitter, which are used for sauce. There are over three 
hundred varieties of plums. Are used for the confection of 
senna. (United States Pharmacopoeia.) 

Vegetable kingdom: Grow wild on small trees, also much 
cultivated. 

Mental kingdom: Possibly as relishes stimulating desire 
for food, being "very fair to look upon." 

Good: In their place. Bad: If abused. 

Condition of feeders: Feeble people who need appetite 
stimulated ; convalescents ; those who seek confections. 
The/ come in well in cases of chronic diseases where there is 
constipation and when the patient has gotten over the worst 
stages. It is one of the first vegetable foods after a strict 
animal food diet. 

Morphology: The substance or parenchyma is loose, lus- 
cious and easily broken down ; large oval cells with clean walls 
inside, from which comes a clear protoplasm, with centrally 
amoeboid granulated protoplasm stretched like a big spider 
with legs or processes touching the concavity of the peri- 
phery with amoebic irregularity, and if you take the right 
stage of ripeness, manifesting most admirably the automobile 
movements of active protoplasm, equal to, if not excelling 
those of the protoplasmic cells of watermelon. There are 
connective fibrous tissues and spiral cellulose ducts. The 
pit or stone is made of dense woody tissue, like but not so 
hard or pitted as peach stones. The meat tastes of prussic 
acid and is not used. Plums are not very sweet. 

Chemistry: Uncrystallizable sugar (glucose), malic acid, 
which gives the sourish taste and mucilaginous matter; 
crystallizable sugar has been obtained from prunes equal 
to cane sugar. See page 124. 



PRUNE — PLUM 191 

P nineties and prunellas. One is a small French plum and 
the other a superior French plum, whence the stone and 
skin have been removed. 

Physiology: Laxative and nutritious; easy to digest 
anatomically and chemically ; mild in action and hence grate- 
ful to the moderately ill or sick. 

Disease: If too largely taken in a debilitated state of 
the digestive organs, they cause flatus and griping in stomach 
and bowels ; are not destructive of tissue, but if too long 
used might produce enlargement and thickening of the 
bowel walls and colloid or gluey discharges from the intes- 
tinal glands. With common sense this can be avoided. 

Sole food: Not long probably, as they will purge and 
have not elements enough to sustain life normally. 

Multiple food: Prunes and plums are used as desserts and 
hence even if eaten alone are mixed with other foods. 
Prunes are generally cooked with water and sugar and used 
as sauce. The California prunes are sweet enough without 
sugar and are more nutritious. Plum broth contains plums 
and raisins ; plum cake has no plums but raisins and dried 
currants ; plum pudding is made of flour, suet, raisins, cur^ 
rants, spice and spirits ; plum pies first of plums, second of 
raisins and currants. Plum porridge is made by mixing 
raisins, currants or plums with flour. 

Cures: Not directly but indirectly by satisfying the 
cravings for botanic food in patients who ought not to eat 
it liberally. It is a safe food to venture on and being sepa- 
rated, that is in small bodies about an inch long, they can 
be counted off by numbers, i.e., four to six prunes being 
often all the sick can bear. If more the disturbance comes. 

Head: Not much, save as stimulating the soul to desire 
food. 

Heart: Taken moderately, yes; immoderately, no; this 
because of flatus. 



19^ PRUNE — PLUM 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails, hair and muscles: Mineral ele- 
ments not sufficient. 

How often used : As a relish they can be used a long time 
satisfactorily. 

Hejat: We have never known prunes to be used to make 
the body hot ; the purpose has been to cool. In Arctic zones 
if they could be had it is very doubtful if prunes would 
replace train oil or fat meat as heat producers. 

Force/. No relish has much force which includes much 
more than heat. Like tomatoes, we have known plums so 
plenty as not to pay for gathering to be used as farm 
laborers' food. They might do for herbivora. 

Climate: Warm and temperate. 

Natural: Prunes lose the pits and may lose the skins, 
but the interstitial and interhistological water is the real loss, 
and this may be deemed natural (as in California). Plums 
are a natural food having no artificial admixtion. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: Plums are damask blue, green, 
white, and their bloom is fully up to the aesthetics of the 
eye and stir up the soul to zest for eating. Plums set off a 
table in good form. In their season, plums will grace the 
most fashionable banquet. 

Religion: No connection. 

Skin: Healthy. 

Fermentation: In Germany there is obtained a kind of 
brandy which in some districts is largely consumed. Of 
course no gas can come from eating plums and prunes save 
from the fermentation, but the above instances are not 
common because of the sparing use. They are rather to be 
commended for their general freedom from fermentation in 
proper use. 

Parasites: Plums are subject to the vegetations of decay 
after ripeness ; before ripeness they may be affected by a fun- 



PRUNE PLUM — LEMON 1 93 

gus; the plum curculia (Conotrachelus-nenuphas), an Amer- 
ican wevil ; a beetle of the family that also preys on the apple 
and quince; the wevil anthonomus prunicida or ''plum 
gouger" is highly destructive to trees in the Mississippi 
Valley; plowrightea morbosa is the fungus that produces 
prune knot; plum moth (Grapolitha prunivora) injures 
plums. 

LEMON 

The lemon is classed among food relishes ; comes from 
Asia and is a tropical and subtropical fruit of the aurantiae 
or orange family ; the citra medica. There are three kinds : 

1, citron; 2, lemon; 3, lime. 1, Citra medica of Risso, fruit 
large, sometimes six inches long. The inner skin is white, 
very thick and spongy; nine or ten compartments filled 
with oblong vesicles contain juice the same as lemon juice. 

2, Citra medica of Linnaeus is the common lemon. 3, Limes 
or Citra aeris of Miller; juice very acid; useful for all pur- 
poses of lemons. According to Risso and Porter there are 
169 varieties: heads as follows — 1, sweet orange; 2, bitter 
and sour oranges ; 3, bergamots ; 4, limes ; 5, shaddocks ; 6, 
lumes ; 7, lemons, and 8, citrons. 5, Shaddock citrus de 
cumana, so called because brought to America by Captain 
Shaddock (Standard Dictionary), are sometimes eight 
inches in diameter and are much in demand as grape fruit. 
They are not a food but a physic. 

Lemons go back in history to the second century, and if 
Tappuah, as some say, is the same as citron, the lemon was 
well known before 1450 B.C. Pliny mentions them. 

Vegetable kingdom: Yes. Mental kingdom: Yes, as a 
stimulant to the mind. 

Good: Yes. Bad: Rarely; we have given harmlessly a 



194 LEMON 

pint and a half of lemon juice in one day ; they disagree 
rarely in certain people. 

Condition of feeders: Lemons may be given to all ages, 
even babes, and are rarely prohibited in disease. 

Morphology: The orange family are all remarkable for 
the size of the ultimate cells of the inner structure, which 
probably are the largest in the animal or vegetable kingdom ; 
they are easily visible to the naked eye and separable into 
single massive cells of protoplasm. The lemon pulp is easy 
to separate into eight wedges with straight edges but 
rounded at the back ; so are oranges. The structure is loose, 
the fibrous tissue is weak but stronger in lemons than in 
oranges ; further studied is found to be very delicate and 
transparent. The juice of the lemon contains free oil in 
drops and amoeboid masses ; minute particles, possibly oil 
in division ; very delicate substance cells ; crystals of raphides 
(consolidated into masses like cystine) which polarize 
light ; while the fibrous tissues do not. The lemon is a 
good organ to study tissues on. Usually the juice alone 
is taken and the fibrous tissues rejected in diet. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: refuse 30, 
water 62.5, protein 0.7, fat 0.5, carbohydrates 5.9, ash 0.4, 
calories 145. Lemons contain six to eight per cent, citric 
acid ; four grammes in a large lemon ; other constituents : 
gum and sugar 1, potassium 44.34, lime 7.61, phosphoric acid 
7.56 per cent. Dr. Austin Holden. The free oil gives flavor. 
The rind is full of aromatic oil. 

Physiology: Refrigerant, making an agreeable and 
refreshing beverage in lemonade, lemon juice, sugar and 
water. Used as a remedy in rheumatism, especially cystinic 
variety. In some forms of rheumatism, not cystinic, lemon 
juice accentuates the disease, thus emphasizing the value of 
the microscope in blood morphology. (See Beef and Uric 



LEMON 195 

Acid.) Lemon juice is a cure for oxaluria; is also good 
for biliousness. It is remarkable that of all vegetables in 
disease it is the best borne. This age is fortunate in being 
so well supplied with lemons. 

Sole food: The citric acid, its chief constituent, could 
sustain life but for a limited time. 

Multiple food: Necessarily yes, as they are relishes and 
well named, because the juice from the lemon makes one 
not only "lick again" but many times. 

Disease :T)oes not produce as a rule except in certain ropy 
conditions of the blood. 

Cures: It aids in helping to get down food in difficult 
cases when the patient turns against it and has to fight to 
live ; is anti-scorbutic ; also see Physiology. 

Head and heart: Good only in awakening feeling for 
food and in relieving the blood of oxalate of lime and 
cystinic rheumatism. The more crystals in the blood stream 
the more difficult it is for the blood to flow and hence harder 
for the heart and the easier for diseases of function and 
tissue to occur. 

Eyes: Not much, save in clearing the blood stream from 
crystalline bodies, which by their retarding or impeding 
the circulation of the eye renders its fatty degeneration 
more possible. 

Bone, teeth, nails, hair, muscles: It is not a builder of 
such tissues. 

Intestines: Good, by stirring up the liver and keeping it 
at its work, also for the prevention of scurvy; lemon juice 
is a great anti-scorbutic. 

How often used: Lemon juice can be used at and between 
meals without harm. 

Heat: Not much in lemons, as they are refrigerant and 
cooling. 



I96 LEMON — LIMES — ORANGE 

Force: Lemons by their cooling properties on a hot day 
may increase force, but otherwise they are not good save as 
preventing the waste caused by a dull liver or rheumatism. 

Climate: Lemons best in hot and temperate climes. 

Natural: Usually eaten without any ethical detractions. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: Very; lemons have a place at 
banquets and clubs. 

Religion: Noted favorably in the Bible. 

Skin: Nothing special known. 

Fermentation: Ferment but little in the alimentary canal. 
This is the reason they thus excel; common vinegar used 
as an acid on spinach, does not always agree, while lemon 
juice almost invariably does and should be substituted where 
vinegar disagrees ; there is a cleanliness of taste compared 
to that of ordinary cider vinegar; besides, lemon juice as 
it is used can have but little yeast in it, while vinegar has 
both alcohol and vinegar yeast to add to the plants already 
in the alimentary canal. It is a very interesting fact that 
citric acid has such qualities over the acetic acid of vinegar. 
Citric acid is not a product of destructive fermentation, but 
is a physiological formation. 

Parasites: Lemons decay after over ripeness, but we 
find no mention of other parasites upon them. 

Intemperance: Not known with lemons. Lemonade is 
a temperance beverage. 

LIMES 

Have the same uses as lemons. They are also put up 
in brine and thus have an earthy taste. 

ORANGE 

Chemistry: Principally sweet and sugary. United States 
Government analysis — edible portion: water 87.5, protein 
0.8, fat .1, carbohydrates 11.1, ash .5, calories 225. 



ORANGE — GREEN PEA 197 

Much used as wholesome relish food; one orange is 
allowed in B right's disease when cases are improving, but 
the objection is they are too sugary and will put vinegar 
yeast in the blood after it has been removed, etc. ; a man 
and wife visited the Windward Islands and lived on oranges 
largely; both came home ill and the blood showed the 
mycoderma aceti in abundance. Their use should be re- 
stricted mainly to well people as a dessert and refreshment, 
especially in warm weather. Orangeade made of oranges, 
sugar and water is a pleasant drink, but not so satisfying 
a beverage as lemonade. How much must we admire the 
admirable chemistry of the orange to be so much alike, yet 
so much different from the lemon. 

Parasites: Icerya parchasi or scale insect; the orange 
dog or caterpillar of the butterfly, papillo cresphontes, ex- 
tremely injurious in the south ; orange mite, tyro glyphus 
gloveri ; also the yeast plants of decay after full ripeness 
as in all sugary fruits, save dates. 

GREEN PEA 

Pisitm sativum: Ranks next to bread, rice, wheaten 
grits, hominy, sago and tapioca ; known to the Romans, 
Columnella Lucius, J. M., agricultural writer about a.d. 45- 
In Darwin's Zoonomia, the pea ranks high ; wheat, barley, 
oats, peas is the order given ; animal foods are in the first 
great division ; botanic foods in the next ; air comes low 
down in the fourth division in total of six. Parr criticises 
Darwin's order by saying that he neglects the obvious dis- 
tinction between the degree of nutrition and the facility of 
digestion; these remarks are specially good in 1906; the 
world groans and dies for not recognizing this knowledge ; 
it is fooled by the sense of the beautiful in food (sight, smell 
and taste), regardless of physiology and pathology, 



I98 GREEN FEA 

Mental kingdom: Yes. Good: Yes, very good. Bad: 
Green peas when properly prepared are not bad. Dried 
peas we have known to poison a whole family. Another 
almost inexplicable circumstance is the following: Father 
and mother with grown-up children kept continually vomit- 
ing despite the remedies administered; emetics were then 
advised and have it over with ; these given and the vomiting 
ceased. We must remember in this case the peas were dried, 
not green ; examination did not bring any satisfactory proof 
of cause. Stale green peas are not so good as fresh, for 
they wilt and lose crispness and a fine albuminous odor, 
which is volatile and dissipates by keeping. Canned peas 
are now in the market and largely used ; of late years, they 
have been found quite good and taste and chew like fresh 
peas ; if they were steamed and canned in the field imme- 
diately after picking, they would be much better. 

Condition of feeders: Green peas prepared and served 
normally suit all that have cut their teeth ; we have neve/ 
known them to disagree. 

Morphology: Peas belong to the leguminosse or bean 
family. The common pisum sativum is covered with a 
membrane made up of loosely joined pillars of cellulose 
(standing at right angles with the plane of the said mem- 
brane), which are as thick as the pillars are long; being 
so loosely and fragilly put together this membrane easily 
softens and disintegrates by the action of heat in cooking 
and is one of the most important changes made in the 
kitchen, for thus is removed the barrier against the contact 
of the digestive juices to the inner substance of the peas, 
which also undergo great changes in the cuisine. A section 
of green pea substance gives a beautiful network of woven 
connective, straight fibrous tissue ; the spaces thus formed 
are filled with starch grains; but boil or steam green peas 



GREEN PEA 1 99 

and you find said network changed into ovoid, obovoid, 
oblong and sometimes globar cells of cellulose, containing 
when fully cooked, starch grains all broken up and changed 
into a homogeneous granular mass like mud almost and 
the walls of cellulose generally ruptured, thus pouring 
forth their contents for easy access of digestive fluids. 
Again, these fully cooked starch grains do not polarize 
light. If the cooking is incomplete the grains which retain 
their shapes like eggs in a glass globe will partially polarize 
light, for the cellulose walls are transparent like clear glass. 
Now, raw pea starch polarizes light much. Taking this as 
a standard say ten and the cooked grains not polarizing 
light as zero there is had a gauge for the amount of cooking. 
Half cooked starch grains would stand at five and thus is 
added to our kitchens one of the finest instruments of pre- 
cision (polariscope) that brings out vibrations of color nine 
hundred and twenty millions of millions per second. Surely 
this is an aesthetic worthy of commendation to the kings 
(chefs) and queens of the kitchen. (See The Changes in 
Food by Cooking.) 

Chemistry: See page 124. 

Physiological food: Very much so. 

Disease: Green peas properly cooked are not pathological. 
Destroy tissues: No. 

Sole food: They come high, next to potatoes, seventh 
on the list, and they can therefore be lived on from thirty 
to forty days. 

Manifold food: Green peas are usually eaten as a vege- 
table dish ; not a relish but as a nice combination with animal 
foods. Pea soups are made by boiling in water with or 
without meat with seasoning and sometimes thickening. 

Cures: Only as a convalescent food. 

Head and heart food: Yes, in a secondary way, 



200 • GREEN PEA 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nail and hair: Not specially good, but 
good enough to tide over emergencies. 

Intestines: Will cause distention of bowels when solely 
fed on. 

How often used: Can be fed on through their season with 
other foods. 

Heat: Not great in green peas but enough for hot 
weather, the time of their greatest use. Dried peas are used 
in soups in cold weather, but as the soups are hot, the heat 
is largely in the hot water. 

Force: The experiments on sole green pea eaters were in 
labof ers on a farm who worked hard all day. Again they 
could not be lived on as sole food for thirty days unless they 
had force; still the eaters in question outside of appetite, 
were very glad to get other food at the end of the experi- 
ment. 

Climate: Temperate climes are for green peas. 

Customs: Green peas and steamed salmon are a great 
standard dinner for Fourth of July celebrations in America. 
They have a place on the table of the poor and rich acceptable 
every where. 

Fashions: Fashions have let alone green peas ; they are 
eaten as they grow, save for the softening by cooking and 
the abstraction of their soluble mineral salts in the liquor 
which is always served with the peas on a deep plate. (Some 
people soak dried peas and bake them as they do beans and 
say they are as good as the green pea.) Green peas served 
on silver platters are very aesthetic to the eye and stimulate 
the desire to eat them. 

Religion: They are not mentioned in the Bible but are 
allowed on fast days in the Latin Church. 

Builders of tissues: The said green pea eaters kept their 
fat and must have had new tissues laid down. 



GREEN PEA — BAKED BEANS 201 

Effect on skin: Fed exclusively to colored people, a very 
perceptible ashy white skin was produced. 

Fermentation: There is such; see Intestines. The gases 
produced are carbonic and sulphydric, also the customary 
alcohol. 

Parasites: Bugs like terrapin in Virginia, caterpillars, 
blight, pea beetle or wevil Bruchus pisi, pea maggot, pea 
moth, sebrasia nebritana. Green peas decay with yeast, but 
dried peas keep for years. 

Intemperance: Very rare; they do not promote the idea 
of surfeiting; being green they have no alcohol. 

BAKED BEAN 

As food, has been extensively used for years ; fed King 
David and troops 1023 B.C. ; Pliny and Columnella mention 
beans as in use by the Romans. They belong to the family 
Leguminosae, Phaseolus vulgaris. The name Phaseolus cr 
Faseolus is Greek. The story of beans is so great that it is 
hardly possible to do it justice in this work. The bean family 
belongs to a vast order of many petaled herbs, shrubs and 
trees. It has three well-marked sub-orders, twenty-four tribes, 
four hundred and twenty-seven genera and seven thousand 
species. We must therefore confine ourselves to the typical 
Boston White Bean used in New England as the conven- 
tional meal for Saturday night and Sunday morning. When 
beans are mentioned here the said small white bean is meant 
unless otherwise stated. 

Mental kingdom: Experiments on six healthy men by 
sole feeding, in five days, found them to be bewildered, con- 
fused and dizzy, and on the fourteenth day the following 
conditions : head vacant, numb, dizzy, strange, eyes staring, 
ears ringing, unsteady gait, reel in walking, felt as if drunk. 

Good: Doubtful for our type of humanity with such a 



202 BAKFD BEANS 

history; but there may be and probably are in the seven 
thousand species of beans some that are good in that their 
physical elements do not resist digestion like the Boston 
white bean. 

Bad: Because their tissues resist the powers of digestion 
and assimilation and thus become sources of evil if detained 
in the alimentary canal. The trouble with beans is in their 
connective tissues, which make the stony hardness of the raw 
bean ; the digestible bean starch is enveloped in said indiges- 
tible connective tissue or cellulose. More of this further on. 

Condition of feeders: This makes a great difference. 
Lumbermen winter in the forests, eating baked beans sent 
to them by the barrel, which are cooked before going into 
camp, freeze solid and have to be chopped out with axes as 
if they were trees and cooked again. But the pure forest air 
and very active and severe physical labors which promote 
downward peristalsis serve to protect those bean eaters from 
harm. Once at Concord, Massachusetts, State Prison on a 
visit, the senior writer saw in the latrines, which were large 
open-air brick walled and bottomed cells, at least a cartload 
of baked beans, all apparently undigested, that had run the 
gauntlet of the convicts' alimentary canals. It was a good 
physiology thus to get rid of such intruders, but what a pun- 
ishment was it to make prisoners eat such articles of food. 
People must be tough like the Scotch on oat meal to live in 
spite of the beans. It would be much better for New 
Englanders to eat baked beans after the rest of the Sabbath 
day than after the wear and tear of six days of hard work. 
As a matter of history beans are eaten by all ages and condi- 
tions save the sick. 

Morphology: Is the same as for peas, only that our 
typical bean used so much for baking is denser and heavier ; 
the straight connective fibrous tissues in the cross sections 



BAKED BEANS 203 

of the raw bean are heavier and the sacs of starch brought 
out by cooking have a tougher, denser coat than the pea ; 
the investing membrane of the bean has prisms whose long 
sides are straight and fit closely to their neighbors, making 
a stronger fabric than the pea ; they appear as the basalt 
prisms of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. 

Chemistry: See also page 124. Beans have more ash than 
wheat, rye, barley, rice unhusked and peas, so that they 
are a fine food chemically to make bones, but the structure 
stands in the way of physiological eminence as a food ; there 
is a larger proportion of nitrogen in beans than in any other 
vegetable food. 

Physiology: To have the physiological action of the bean 
it must be thoroughly cooked. It must be soaked (best in cold 
water over night) boiled for twelve hours and baked during 
the night, so that the starch is thoroughly changed into a 
homogeneous granular non-polarizing mass. The sacs musr 
be ruptured so as to allow the free access of the oral, stom- 
achic and intestinal juices of digestion to the starch, also to 
rupture the outside tough Giant's Causeway prismed outer 
envelope; thus the physical obstacles are removed which 
otherwise more or less bar out the nutritious chemical quali- 
ties of the bean ; but the difficulty is that people do not take 
the pains to cook the bean so as to present the test of full 
cooking; they are satisfied with the halfway cuisine, that 
leaves the outer envelope unbroken, the starch sacs unrup- 
tured and the starch grains to preserve their shapes like 
eggs inside a big glass globe and to polarize light. The beans 
noted (under Condition of Feeders) had been through the 
alimentary canals of the convicts untroubled and had been 
nothing but objects of intestinal irritation; also the mor- 
phology of the baked beans of commerce proves this by 
showing the unruptured sacs and the polarizing starch 



204 BAKED BEANS 

grains ; indeed the writers have rarely, if ever, found per- 
fectly cooked baked beans, so practically we must say that 
the physiological action of baked beans is an exception than 
a rule. 

Action of the ordinary baked beans: Six strong and well 
men were fed on a diet of baked beans and coffee with the 
following histories : "Third da)' bloated, constipated, colic, 
ears ringing, dizzy. Fourth day, also bewildered. These 
symptoms increased so that by the ninth day, hands, feet and 
body prickled. On the eleventh day bewilderment much 
greater, other symptoms further accentuated, constipation 
succeeded by diarrhoea. Eighteenth day very much worse, 
including dragging feet, much dizziness, ringing of ears, pal- 
pitation of heart, prickling, numbness all over, reeling and 
difficult walking. (See The Relation of Alimentation and 
Disease.) These experiments throw light on what the 
general practitioner meets with often and perhaps are not 
sufficiently appreciated. Hence when people complain of the 
following symptoms, to wit, bewilderment, dizziness, confu- 
sion, ears ringing, profuse diarrhoea, difficult breathing, 
exhaustion, eyes vacant and staring, feet dragging, palpita- 
tion, pain in heart, prickling limbs, reeling, strange feelings, 
walk reeling and unsteady, weakness, wobbling, their rela- 
tions to disease of the nervous system should be remembered. 
It is well not to forget that four days feeding on broiled 
beef cured said cases ; such has special significance as to the 
treatment of locomotor ataxia. The conventional baked 
bean, solely fed, may be considered as destructive of the 
spinal and ganglionic nerve centers. 

Sole food: Eighteen days. 

Manifold food: Practically; salt pork and molasses are 
usually baked with them. Bread, butter, pickles and tomato 
catsup are almost always presented on the table with them. 



BAKED BEANS 205 

May not beans be used without producing disease: Most 
all bean eaters* say they can. It is human not to own up to 
error, especially in relation to foods, but in view of the facts 
here given, the beans should be thoroughly cooked; after 
this they should be the food of active out-of-door workers, 
mainly. It would also be better to give up the use of the 
white pea bean conventionally used by the mass of the 
people, and use the larger beans. The Lima or Siva has a 
less compact outside skin, its prisms are loosely put together, 
the sacs of cellulose, incorrectly called legumen, are thin and 
more fragile than the sac cells of the conventional bean. 
The morphology of the seven thousand species of bean 
should be studied to find what species is most readily 
softened or separated so as to yield its rich store of nitrogen 
to the actions of the digestive organs. 

Morphology of the large red bean: So far as examined 
it is not, as to skin, made of cellulose prisms and hence it 
is easier to cook and digest; it has a food claim over the 
conventional bean. 

Cures: Not much unless properly cooked so that the 
nitrogen and other mineral elements can be assimilated. 
Under such requirements no doubt beans can help to cure 
broken bones ; but under such conditions we are confronted 
by the non-locomotive state of the patient. It is better to 
cook beans so that disease may be cured by preventing it. 

Head: Based on the evidence here given they are con- 
sidered a bad head food. Epileptics will have fits brought 
on by feeding on them ; also the conventional baked beans 
are so hard to digest that they steal away force from the 
head. The action of fermentation paralyzes the brain more 

* A Boston dealer, 1901, whose business embraces one million bushels of 
beans per year says that lately they were obliged to import bags of the conven- 
tional bean by the thousand from Europe to supply the present demands, as 
the domestic crop is not sufficient. 



206 BAKED BEANS 

or less, thus the head has a hard time with common baked 
beans. We especially would not recommend baked beans 
to literary people. 

Heart: In the sole feeding of beans, the heart palpitated 
and was oppressed. This came from the paralyzing gases in 
the bowels, also because the heart's force was lessened by the 
extra work of digesting the beans. The local heart circula- 
tion must have been impeded and retarded, its nourishment 
lessened, when to do its work in a system overborne with too 
great digestive labors the heart should have had more. No 
doubt in beans properly cooked, the nitrogen assimilated 
would make a fine heart food. 

Eyes: In the above experiments, the eyes suffered as to 
osmotic circulation being impeded or hindered by the 
troubles wrought by said beans. Chemically beans should 
be good eye food because the cornea and lenses demand 
plenty of mineral elements for their proper development. 

Bone, teeth, nails and hair: Beans are fine foods for these 
organs if their mineral elements can be assimilated. Plenty 
of hot water should be given to cases bed-ridden because 
of fractures and thus help the digestive organs by keeping 
the beans moving downward. 

How often used: Three days with safety under normal 
conditions. The case for New England would be far worse 
if baked beans were used daily. 

Intestines: Baked beans bloat them by the gases of 
decomposition from the starch fermenting inside of the un- 
ruptured sacs and exploding them like dynamite bombs. 

Heat: Beans have heat abundantly from their starch, 
but due to the present usages of imperfect cooking the heat 
is largely lost, as the starch is not all digested. 

Force: The subject ranges in two ways — one to digest 
beans and the other in its production. The average bean 
eater must expect to expend much more force in digesting 



BAKED BEANS 207 

beans than he should, simply from the brainlessness of the 
cooks; better for him to spend a part of his force to make 
the kitchen do its work ; if beans are properly selected and 
thoroughly cooked, their assimilable nitrogen and mineral 
elements will confer force, as seen in the severe labor of the 
lumbermen. 

Climate.' In temperate and cool climes, beans are best. 
Dried they will keep good for four or five years; they are 
used all over the United States. 

Natural: Custom has not decreed any diminution of the 
natural condition of the bean ; its skin and substance are 
kept intact; its chemistry is unaltered to suit the demands 
of society table ethics. 

Fashionable : Not specially, though they figure on menus 
to some extent. Beans are rather the food of the poor and 
what is called the middle classes. The elite prefer in Europe 
to give them to their horses. The elite of 1800 B.C. must 
have deemed beans a very aesthetic dish, for it was of lentiles 
that Jacob made pottage and bought Esau's birthright with 
it. Times have changed since then. No New Englander 
would give a fashionable banquet to an Imperial Representa- 
tive — of baked beans. No, they are rather a homely domestic 
unaesthetic dish to set before one's guestless family. 

Religion: While Esau's pottage affected the world's 
religions by his disposing of his birthright, still beans do 
not figure now in the religions of the world unless in the 
deranging of the heads of religionists, stirring up strifes 
because of the bewildered cerebration, making people cross, 
crabbed, ugly, cruel, of a sour disposition, obstinate, etc. 
Had New Englanders ate the right kind of properly cooked 
baked beans, perhaps there would not have been so much 
theological antagonisms in that favored land. 

Builders of tissue: Fine, if they can be assimilated. 

Skin: So far as known they confer strength on it and 



208 BAKED BEANS 

cause no skin disease other than if one has latent eczema or 
other skin disease and with difficulty digests beans or other 
foods, the. said eczema will begin to show. The best skin 
disease treatment is to keep up a normal nutrition of the 
body and stop the leaks of force. 

Fermentation: Yes, as already daily shown; see also 
chapter on Fermentation. 

Parasites: (i) Bean dolphin an aphid; (2) bean wevil, 
Bruchus fabse of America; (3) a mould in wet weather 
will attack beans, Ustilago; (4) smuts uredinse, etc. The 
white pea bean has been wonderfully protected by its tough 
cellulose envelope, which preserves the bean from the attacks 
of these parasites, or if they are attacked, the change of color 
reveals at once a warning and besides, the severe cooking 
will destroy all fungi, which probably would not find a nest 
on the vines, if they are properly manured or fed. 

Intemperance: The only fatality we know of was in 1854, 
when the Asiatic cholera killed two cases in a Massachusetts 
town. One was an Irishman who had eaten improperly (not 
wholly of beans however) and the other was that of an 
estimable and respected physician, some sixty years of age, 
who had all the symptoms of cholera exhibited in his vomit, 
and in addition baked beans, some of them black and 
brown, but all hard and some chitinous. It was intemperate 
for him to have eat the clearly improperly cooked baked 
beans, and had he not thus predisposed his intestines to 
the complaint which was thought to be "in the air" of the 
whole country, he would not have lost his normal force and 
thus died of cholera. But we may go back of this and 
arraign the cook for her shabby, slatternly, inexcusable 
work, as there should have been water enough to keep the 
beans from burning. The incident serves to show how much 
our lives depend on the queens of the kitchen. 



STRING BEANS 

The unripe pod and contents are here considered and 
are ranked with green peas freshly picked, next to the seven 
aristocratic and royal vegetable foods. 

Mental kingdom: Yes, as they are so easily digested and 
their nutritious properties so readily assimilated when 
freshly cooked. 

Good: When freshly cooked they have a velvety crisp 
fresh water sponge feel and are good. 

Bad: If wilted, limp and not crisp; they do not, however, 
deteriorate very fast, but the closer they are used to the time 
of picking the better they are. They are like green corn 
(maize) in this respect. The wilting is due to the evapora- 
tion of the water of cell life which to them is like the water 
of crystallization to mineral substances and more. Wilting 
is an arrest of growth and osmotic development. 

Condition of feeders: Fresh string beans are adapted to 
most convalescents and well people when properly cooked. 

Morphology: The seeds are undeveloped, small, fragile 
and easy to separate ; the tissue of the pod is elastic, separa- 
ble, protoplastic, soluble — soft, though not a jelly ; fine things 
to study microscopically because so easily reduced to a thin- 
ness that allows light to penetrate through and reveal their 
structure, which is beautiful (when uncooked) under pol- 
arized light ; the specimen studied, March, 1902, canned 
goods, was a rarely rich object; this is saying a good deal. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: refuse 
7.0, water 83., protein 2.1, fat 0.3, carbohydrates 6.9, ash 
0.7, calories 180. It is probable that the mineral elements 
in ripe beans are present in string beans in an assimilable 
and easily digestible form, because nascent. 

Physiology: The flesh of string beans is being developed 
and is unprepared for the functions of resistance to outside 

209 



2IO STRING BEANS 

causes of decay like the bean itself. Again the mature bean 
pod is so indigestible as not to be eaten unless hunger can 
in no other way be satisfied, and even then it would give 
the digestive organs, weakened by famine, such a hard task- 
that the said mature bean pods would be almost poisonous, 
String beans thus add the succulent and nutritious pod 
envelope to the food values of the seed bean and need no 
soaking, as they have water enough, which is essential to 
their nutritive qualities as shown by the ill effects of wilted 
string beans. So the physiology of string beans is all in the 
direction of normal assimilation in man, and if they have as 
much nitrogen and mineral elements as the ripe bean their 
use is to be encouraged. 

Disease: There is none for fresh string beans, properly 
cooked, but if used wilted they do not digest well and may 
cause all the ills of indigestible vegetable food of a milder 
type than the woes of indigestible baked beans ; when the 
nascent development has come to the stringy or fibrous 
tissue states, or in other words when the connective fibrous 
tissue cells have passed their protoplasmic stage, they are 
unhealthy. 

Destruction of tissues: Fortunately people - are wise 
enough not to eat stale string beans and hence practical in- 
stances of this are not known. String beans show a different 
mode of development from apples, pears, potatoes, cranber- 
ries, oranges, bananas, thus demonstrating unity and not uni- 
formity in the natural world. The natural philosopher 
basing his observations on string beans might make a law 
that connective fibrous tissues were first soft and tender 
and then dense and hard, but every boy who samples green 
apples knows that said tissues are hard and indigestible and 
that the ripe tissues are soft. In the animal kingdom taking 
man as its highest type an observer might reason 
that man's red blood corpuscles should be smaller than 



STRING BEANS 211 

those of the whale and larger than those of the frog, 
whereas, the whale's red corpuscles are half man's size 
and the frog's several times larger. Again, as man's white 
blood corpuscles are larger than the red it should be so, as 
to other animals ; it is, but not in all ; the white blood cor- 
puscles (leucocytes) of the frog are smaller than the red, 
and the examination of the blood of the living frog spleen 
shows the red corpuscles forming over the white, yet they are 
all bloods and the same though not uniform. Man then 
should be very careful how he undertakes to formulate the 
laws of creation. 

Sole food: They come next to potatoes. 

Manifold food: Always eaten in connection with other 
foods, but are generally served by themselves. 

Raw: Not as a rule, as they produce disease; tender 
though they are, they must be boiled in water or steamed. 
If man was brought up after weaning to live on raw foods, 
string beans probably could be eaten, certainly better than 
raw bean seeds or berries. 

Cures: During convalescing any vegetable food that can 
be lived on for thirty-four days solely is generally good 
to complete their cure. 

Head: Yes, or else sole feeding for thirty- four days 
would not be healthy, which word here includes the health 
of the head — intellect. String beans would be good in the 
diet of literary men, college students for example. Its large 
excess of nitrogen must confer force on the ganglionic 
nerve centers, especially as their digestion is so easy. Well 
might New Englanders exchange their ill-cooked conven- 
tional baked beans and show to the world even better head 
work than they have surprised mankind with. 

Heart: Is good for the nitrogen reason. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails, hair: Good because of soluble 
mineral elements. 



212 STRING BEANS — IRISH MOSS 

How often used: Mainly in summer and fall months. 
Are used in winter canned. 

Intestines: String beans do not distend, thicken, or irri- 
tate the intestines like baked beans. This is a point of great 
dietetic value. 

Heat units: The starch and connective tissue of string 
beans furnish plenty of heat. 

Force: Theoretically, string beans because of their nitro- 
gen furnish much force ; practically a woman who lived on 
thern for a day solely, states that she was abundantly able 
to do her manual work and felt no loss of potential energy ; 
the same was the case of the men who fed solely on them for 
thirty-four days. 

Climate: Best in cold and temperate climes. 

Natural: Customs do not deprive them of their nutritious 
elements. 

Aesthetics: Fashion admits string beans to its menus 
freely. It is to be hoped that string beans will continue to 
hold their high place in the estimation of those who cater 
for the well-to-do. The present mortality of this class would, 
we think, be lessened if string beans were more freely eaten 
in place of many good looking and good tasting articles 
which have no other qualifications for their use. 

Builders of tissue: Surely. Effect on skin: Good. 

Fermentation: Fresh, healthy, properly cooked and eaten 
string beans do not ferment in the elementary canal like 
baked beans. 

IRISH MOSS 

One of the algae, Chondrus crispus. Fucus crispus, 
United States (Dunglison), who says it is a good diet for 
consumptives ; in Ireland the sole food of the very poor. 
It grows on the New England seashore, where the ice 



IRISH MOSS 213 

water of the gulf stream comes on its return after leaving 
the arctic icebergs. At Buzzards Bay where water in 
summer is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit Irish moss is not 
found; is used as dessert in the United States. 

Algae are aquatic and marine plants with and without 
roots and without trunk, bark, leaves, etc ; they have over 
two hundred thousand species ; are called cryptogams, 
because they have no flowers (as the phanerogams have), 
but propagate by spores and by budding. Are smaller than 
the smallest phanerogams and larger than the largest. 
Common hydrant waters furnish algae invisible for study 
save with a microscope power of four hundred diameters ; 
the macrocystis pyrifera of the Sargasso Sea is a free float- 
ing alga, one-third of a mile square and nine hundred feet 
deep (Prof. Paulus F. Reinsch), and yet these two are of the 
same family. Fungi are cryptogams and they differ from 
algae, mainly as animals from trees. Fungi and animals give 
off carbonic acid gas ; algae and trees give off oxygen and 
thus vivify the air and seas for animal life that would other- 
wise perish. Algae are called Thallophytes or frond plants, 
and are used as food ; not at all in comparison with the 
flowering plants. It is probable that man could find in 
algae large and good additions to his food supplies, hence 
it is a field to be occupied, but the Irish moss is the best 
known and most used at present. 

History of Irish moss: References found do not go back 
of the last century, but perhaps under another name it goes 
further. 

Good: Yes. Bad: Not when properly prepared. 

Condition of feeders: Chronic diarrhoea cases, consump- 
tives, delicate persons best suited to it. 

Morphology: The fronds are boneless, semi-solid, tough, 
leathery, somewhat elastic, branching in double divisions, 



214 IRISH MOSS 

interspace between flat surfaces filled with a gelatinous 
protoplasm. There are no woody fibres nor spiral tissues, 
no vessels, no cellulose nor bark nor roots for nourishment, 
but simply as anchors to stones and other objects so closely 
attached as to be detached with difficulty. Color is purple 
when fresh, but dried it is yellow or yellowish white with 
sometimes purple spots ; this is due to its preparation. At 
Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in the summer, one can see 
large heaps of Irish moss bleaching and drying in the sun; 
they have to be kept turned over and protected against 
rain and moisture. When fully and sometimes too fully 
dried they are sent to market, where they will keep for some 
time; the odor in drying is of the salt sea, albuminous, 
sometimes approaching putridity. 

Chemistry: Contains starch, pectin, compounds of sul- 
phur, chlorine, bromine and iodine ; oxalate of lime, fatty 
matter, free acids. The active principle is called the 
Carrageein, as the vernacular name of Irish moss (Carra- 
geen, from a town in Ireland) . Carrageein differs from gum 
as alcohol throws down no precipitate from its watery 
solution ; from starch, as iodine does not turn it blue ; from 
pectin by no precipitate with sugar of lead and by no 
mucic acid with nitric acid. The pectin group (our knowl- 
edge is imperfect) may all be more or less present in the 
plant as follows: Pectose (unknown), pectin, pectonic 
acid, pectic acid, metapectic acid ; the proportions of carbon, 
hydrogen and oxygen are the same in these bodies and 
correspond with the formula C8, Hio, O7 ; these bodies 
compose fruit jellies; pectoric acid is soluble in boiling 
water, hence most fruit jellies liquefy on boiling; pectic 
acid is insoluble even in boiling water ; metapectic acid is 
formed by too long boiling, by too long contact with acid 
or alkalies, and by decay from pectic and pectoric acids. 



IRISH MOSS 215 

Freny says it is very soluble and quite sour to taste. Ripe 
quinces, strawberries, peaches, grapes, apples, etc., furnish 
this pectose group. 

Physiology: The structure and tissues are so soluble, 
that it is a physiological food. The carbon, hydrogen and 
oxygen are combined with a good amount of soluble mineral 
food, which is needed for the healthy functions of the body 
and should, we think, always be associated with the carbo- 
hydrates. The latter are poor food taken alone. This was 
shown in the harmlessness to teeth of sugar-cane juice as 
compared with pure mineralless white sugar, bleached with 
blood charcoal. 

Disease: We wish we could get hold of a history of 
Ireland when the effects of sole feeding on Irish moss were 
reported, but so far as we know Irish moss produces no 
disease effects as now used. Nor do they destroy tissues. 

Sole food: We do not know, except as herein noted. 

Multiple food: Used generally with water, milk and 
sugar. 

Cures: Its blanc mange has cured cases of chronic 
diarrhoea. 

Head and heart: Not particularly good or bad. Its 
easy digestion by a sick tubercular alimentary canal proves 
this ; is also a good food for the diet list of literary men. 

Eyes: The mineral elements found in Irish moss make 
it a good ocular food. The carbohydrates are properly 
balanced with inorganic matter. 

Bone, teeth, nails, hair: Fair; not positively excellent. 

How often used: May be right along. 

Action on intestines: As it is so digestible and gasless its 
action is good. 

Heat: Abundant supply. Force: It furnishes some. 
Climate: Used in temperate climes. 



2l6 IRISH MOSS — SPINACH 

Natural: Save it is combined with milk, but there is no 
abstraction of natural elements except in the drying. It is 
eaten by children raw, without harm. 

Aesthetics: Is an aesthetic food ; the blanc mange can be 
moulded into so many aesthetic shapes and attractive forms 
to grace the table display and confer elegance and beauty 
of the caterer's kind; it would be well if it were more 
fashionable because of its excellent qualities. 

Religion: None bars it from the diet. 

Builder of tissue: Yes, in a measure. 

Effect on skin: Good as far as known. 

Fermentation: Wet and undried, it does not keep well and 
deteriorates from the fermentation of its carbohydrates. 

Parasites: There are some possibly but we do not know 
them save those of the fungi description. Algae are very 
much preyed on by vegetable and protoplasmic (animal) 
parasites, some of which are innocent guests of the host; 
these parasites are so numerous and constant that some 
species of algae were defined by them, but we know of no 
poisonous parasites on Irish moss properly prepared. 

Intemperance: Never knew of it, but it is possible. It 
does not set up a gourmandizing appetite- 

SPINACH 

Spinacia oleracea is largely used as food, but does not 
date back of 1589 (Cogan) ; no mention of it by Galen. 

Good: As a relish and anti-scorbutic. It fills a place of 
greens on the table specially in spring time and summer. 

Bad: When too freely eaten it has the credit of purging 
the bowels by a diarrhoea - that nature sets up to rid the 
alimentary tract of injurious fermenting foods undigested. 

Condition of feeders: Save the suckling, all can use 



SPINACH 217 

spinach if in health. Not good for the sick, but borne by 
convalescents in latter part of period of recovery. 

Morphology: The rootless plant is used; its structural 
tissue is fragile, tender with the chlorophyll and protoplasm, 
hence its easy digestibility. Spinach cooked at hotel, March 
14, 1902 ; the usual elements of a leaf ; two membranes with 
stomata enclosing parenchyma of cells of chlorophyll 
changed to dark brown ; cell walls thin, containing transpa- 
rent coagulated protoplasm, large relatively, generally two- 
thirds of contents mostly kidney shaped — besides some 
obovoid substance cells about four times the size of above 
cells with clear transparent walls and filled more or less with 
raphide crystals, some like large starch cells, some with 
angular crystals projecting and some oblong parallelo- 
pipedons like triple phosphate crystals ; these were very 
beautiful objects under the polarizers; in one case they filled 
half these cell walls ; the usual spiral tissue pitted ducts 
found; the tissues were tender and made an easy object to 
study. 

Chemistry : United States Government analysis : water 
92.3, protein 2.1, fat 0.3, carbohydrates 3.2, ash 2.1, calories 
no. See also page 124. 

Physiology: Acts as a relish and does more by supplying 
the lack when the natural appetite calls for fresh pot herbs — 
when stored and dried vegetables have been eaten in the 
winter ; it makes the liver to secrete bile better. 

Disease: Unless too long and too much eaten, spinach is 
not disease producing as to organic structural lesions, but is 
rather a function perverter making the normal peristalsis 
run into diarrhoea. And as we have shown, even this is or 
may be curative. 

Sole food: We know not. Spinach grows abundantly in 
the South. In times of great scarcity of food, the negroes 



2l8 SPINACH 

have been known to eat green peas but not spinach, whose 
food powers were well known. 

Multiple food: Always in connection with other foods as 
in old times in broths and soups and now as a part of the 
multiple food repast. 

Cures: The tendency to scurvy after the winter months 
is cured by spinach. 

Head food: Hardly, save as an agreeable stimulant, 
increasing the apprehension or desire for more nourishing 
food and its digestion. 

Heart food: Only as it increases the assimilation of more 
force food and stops the losses incurred by a sluggish and 
torpid state of the digestive organs. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nail and hair: Indirectly ; spinach being 
eaten solely, diseases of said organs would manifest them- 
selves in decided ways. Relishes are deficient in mineral 
elements. 

How often used: Generally once a day at the dinners in 
spring, summer and fall. 

Intestines: Not abused, spinach acts very kindly on the 
intestines, because so easily digested and because of its anti- 
scurvy qualities. Abused, spinach causes chronic diarrhoea, 
but not near so decidedly as baked beans or oatmeal, because 
of the tenderness of its woven elements of connective tissue. 

Heat: Yes, as its carbohydrates are apparently abundant 
Force: Not much. 

Climate: Temperate climes and not grown naturally in 
cold weather ; artificially raised for the city markets the year 
round and helpfully. 

Customs: No interference save by boiling to make more 
digestible. 

Aesthetic: It is a fashionable food. 

Religious relations: None specially. Tissue builder: Not 
directly much. Skin: Good. 



SPINACH ONIONS 219 

Fermentation: Not much, properly used. The diarrhoea 
from its abuse is due to the fermentation in the overloaded 
and surcharged condition of the bowels. But the mildness of 
spinach towards the digestive organs requires much abuse to 
make fermentation. 

Parasites: Beyond the ordinary fungi and worms that 
come to the foliage when the plant has not proper mineral 
food, we do not know of parasites infecting spinach. There 
is more wilted and fungus infected spinach found in January 
than in any other month. 

Intemperance: We know not of such. 

ONIONS 

Allium cepa belongs to the lily family, which has two 
thousand three hundred species and comes from Central 
Asia, as lately discovered. Have been used all over the 
world as food. The earliest mention is b.c 1490. 

Good: When properly prepared. They are considerably 
eaten raw but much more cooked and add a relish to other 
foods. 

Bad: For the sick and diseased, save in scurvy ; also when 
abused. 

Condition of eaters: Should be healthy, save in scurvy 
cases. 

Morphology: The onion is the bulb of the plant; the 
shoots are not eaten unless young and tender ; the bulb is 
made up of concentric layers, nicely fitted together and yet 
so as to be easily peeled off. The texture of the common 
onion is dense, tough and almost transparent, so that it needs 
boiling, steaming or stewing for edibility; if young and 
tender, the bulbs are sometimes eaten raw. Raphides are 
found in the substance, supposed to be oxalate of lime. The 
walls of the onion layers are smooth and linearly run in a 



220 ONIONS 

vertical direction ; between them is a protoplasmic flesh sub- 
stance with oil and raphides ; the outer coats of the onion are 
dry and membranous, reddish, white or yellowish, according 
to variety. 

Chemistry: They contain a white acrid volatile oil holding 
sulphur in solution, albumen, much uncrystallizable sugar 
and mucilage, phosphoric acid, free and combined with lime, 
ace # tic acid, acetate of lime and liguin. See also page 124. 

Physiology: Onions have a sweetish acrid taste. They 
stimulate, act on the kidneys and lungs, and locally applied 
redden the skin. 

Disease: In large quantities they cause flatus, gastric 
irritation and febrile excitement from fermentation; diar- 
rhoea may ensue ; also "when raw bad dreams and headache 
mar the memory and trouble the understanding." (Cogan, 

15890 

Sole food: We know not. 

Multiple food: Always; when boiled, the volatile oil is 
driven of! and onions then take place with other esculents, 
specially at a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, when their flavor 
makes harmonies with the other palatal and nasal music of 
the festival. 

Cures: Onions have a popular reputation for being good 
for the liver; they are most excellent in scurvy. Their 
sulphur should make them good for baldness, as hair has 
so much sulphur as to make its compound with ammonia 
amide well known when burnt. Onions have always been 
considered good for coughs, especially the squill preparation 
prescribed by physicians. But the idea is now to stop cough 
by stopping prime cause, i.e., bad food, which ferments in the 
alimentary canal. Asthmatic coughs due mainly to gravels 
of the air passages are best relieved by aerated distilled 
water, at the same time giving a diet that does not yield 



ONIONS 221 

gravels in excess. Onions lessen the viscid tight phlegm 
or mucus, undoubtedly. 

Head and heart: No, save as relish. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, hair, nails: Save as to its sulphur, 
phosphorus and lime, onions are not specially good foods 
for these. 

How often used: Not often, as they clog the appetite. 

Intestines: Eaten cooked, and in moderation, have no bad 
effect because they digest well and sometimes help the liver. 
If the intestines are dilated, enlarged or thickened by onions, 
such is due to over-feeding. 

Heat: Furnish heat because of the carbohydrates and 
mucin. 

Force: Not much, as compared with that of dates, whole 
wheat, rye, barley. Carbohydrates may furnish force on 
emergencies, but they burn out in the body like shavings in 
a stove, only slower. 

Climate: Has great influence over the quality of onions. 
Bermudas are larger, milder and more tender than the onion 
of the United States. The Egyptian onion for which the 
Jews inordinately longed, were highly esteemed, as Egypt 
was admirably adapted to their culture. Frederick Hassel- 
quist (Swedish naturalist, 1722-1752) said: "He, whoever 
has tasted, onions in Egypt, must allow that none can be 
better in any part of the universe. Here they are sweet; 
in other countries they are nauseous and strong. Here they 
are soft; whereas in northern and other parts they are hard 
and their coats so compact that they are difficult of digestion. 
Hence they cannot in any place be eaten with less prejudice 
and more satisfaction than in Egypt." 

Natural: Customs have not changed the natural propor- 
tions of onions before cooking. 

Fashionable: Not fully. Those who are to engage in any 



222 ONIONS 

social function or occasion refrain from eating onions at or 
before said events, because the odor from same pervades the 
breath for quite a day after eating — which is neither pleasing 
not grateful to the aesthetic tastes which demand that all 
must be beautiful to the eye, ear, nose and palate as far as is 
possible. And how can this be when a nauseous, stale, rank 
odor that smells so horribly that one feels as if the teeth 
were set on edge or a pail of cold water poured down one's 
back. This effect, of an onion tainted breath in society 
occasions, shows one influence it exerts on the spirits of men. 
Religion: Relations have existed. Juvenal and Lucian 
the Greek poet, in the first century, a.d v ridicule the super- 
stitious Egyptians, who did not dare to eat onions, leeks or 
garlic, for fear of injuring their gods. Satire xv. has this 
passage : 

"How Egypt, mad with superstition grown, 

Makes gods of monsters, but too well is known. 

'Tis mortal sin an onion to devour ; 

Each clove of garlic has a sacred power. 

Religious nation, sure! and blest abodes, 

Where ev'ry garden is o'errun with gods!" 
It is probable that all Egyptians of Moses' time are not 
included here. Herodotus, the most ancient of Greek histo- 
rians, does not indicate the superstition. Per contra, 
Diodorus Siculus says that onions were permitted to the 
people. Others say that the priests were not permitted them, 
and this might have caused the satirist to infer that onions 
were reverenced as divinities. Be this as it may, the desire 
of eating onions violated the national worship of the Israel- 
ites and was followed by a terribly fatal plague. 

Builders of tissues: Yes, moderately. The skin: Good. 
Fermentation: The juice of the onion can be made into 
an alcoholic liquor, as it has sugar. We know of no instance 



ONIONS — LEEKS — GARLIC 22$ 

where it has been, but it would have its flavor insured by 
its abundant oil. 

Parasites: The onion fly, Anthomya ceparum, whose 
larvae (onion maggots) feed on onions, sometimes eating 
the upper half of the bulb. Onions also are subject to 
blight and mildew fungi if not properly manured or kept too 
wet. 

Intemperance: Possible, from the delicious flavor and 
appetizing qualities and because they give a pleasant touch to 
the mouth and pharynx during swallowing. 

LEEKS 

Allium possum: Used since over 2000 b.c. They are a 
species of Allium, having a very small bulb and long narrow 
shoots, which are used to flavor soups because of the abun- 
dant essential oil. Much used in England in the sixteenth 
century for medicine. They are relishes and valuable ; men- 
tioned here because allied to onions. 

GARLIC 

Allium sativum: An onion said to come from Sicily; 
used in the third millennium b.c. in Egypt. Bulb is composed 
of ten or twelve divisions called cloves. Its taste is very 
pungent and sharp. Now much used by the Latin races 
as a condiment. 

Good: Yes. Bad: Yes, when eaten raw. 

Morphology: Its bulb is divided into ten to twelve sec- 
tions called cloves, which are whitish, moist and fleshy. In 
the sample* before us, the bulb is whitish, in three vertical 
divisions (cloves), each of varying size, covered with white 

*Furnished by Frank A. Lorenzo, M.D., of Punxsutawney, Penna. 



224 GARLIC 

membrane and inside facets with pale yellow membrane; 
this want of uniformity with onions, whose substance is made 
up of concentric laminae, does not make garlic not in unity 
with onions, but shows how the Creator has several modes of 
doing things, so that one must be careful about drawing 
general conclusions from single types; there would be less 
conflict of organized religions, were this understood: the 
structure of specimen is very delicate and fine ; curiously, in 
the center of a cross section, there is a greenish round spot, 
which is a ring much like the outside layers of fruits in inti- 
mate structure, another reversal of structure, putting outside 
in, as the lobster has his skeleton outside and man his inside, 
and both animals. There are some oil globules excreted by 
the* cells of the garlic that gives the well-known odor. Its 
substance is made up of colorless transparent cells of cellu- 
lose of the utmost delicacy and beauty, filled with proto- 
plasm ; does not polarize light well ; we think its architectural 
structure entitles it to the high estimation it is held among 
Italians. It seems akin to asafetida. The central greenish 
mass, round or oval, has a distinct peripheral ring of darker 
structure, which proves to be made of prisms of cells, laid 
side by side much like the prisms of the skin of the Boston 
baked beans ; the inside is made up of cells, oblong, parallelo- 
pipedons, with abundant bodies appearing like the stomata of 
leaves ; but some of them had in the center of inside cell a 
darkish nucleus and not an opening as first thought ; probably 
these are the cells that secrete the garlic odor ; a longitudinal 
section of a "clove" shows this central axis to be the embryo 
of the shoot, whence the garlic sprouts ; there is not much 
spiral duct tissue in the specimen examined. 

Chemistry: It has a very volatile essential oil as first 
distilled, heavier than water and of dark brownish color, 
decomposed by boiling; repeated distillation in salt water 



GARLIC 225 

bath purifies it to a pale yellow color; it is not decomposed 
by boiling. This oil is called Allyle C6 H5 S. The impure 
oil has an extremely pungent odor, strong acrid taste, irri- 
tates the skin and sometimes blisters. In 1406 parts, there 
are mucilage 520, albumen 37, fibrous matter 48, water 801. 
Sulphur, saccharine matter and starch are found. The flesh 
bulbs yield by pressure quite one-fourth part of a highly 
viscid juice so thick as to need dilution with water before 
filtering. The dried juice serves as a lute for porcelain. 
Water, alcohol and vinegar extract the virtues of the cloves. 
Continued boiling spoils. 

Physiology as a condiment: Its oil is speedily absorbed, 
and going through the system is smelt in the breath and 
secretions. Applied outside, as to the soles of the feet, it 
imparts its odor to the breath and secretions, and according 
to some may be tasted in the mouth. It is a general stimu- 
lant ; excites the nervous system ; the cloves may be swal- 
lowed whole; moderately taken it assists feeble digestion. 

Disease: Used largely, causes gastric irritation, stomach 
distress, flatulence, hemorrhoids and fever. 

Sole food: Not for more than a few days. 

Multiple food: Always. 

Produce disease: Yes, if abused. 

Cures: In some case of feeble digestion. 

Head: When taken largely, makes head to ache. 

Eyes: Eaten raw, the essential oil stings the eyes. 

Intestines: Distended by too much use. See Disease. 

Climate: Best in cool climates, though much used by 
Latins. 

Aesthetics: Garlic is not fashionable, and those who do 
use it are given a wide berth. 

Religion: See Climate. The Talmudists often mention 
the fondness of the Jews for garlic. Dioscorides asserts that 



226 GARLIC — HORSERADISH 

garlic grew plenteously in Egypt, esteemed, eaten and wor- 
shipped : 

"Their gods were recommended by their taste. 
Such savory deities needs be good 
Which served at once for worship and for food." 
Builder of tissues: Not directly. 

Effect on skin: The essential oil greatly irritates and even 
blisters. 

Fermentation: Somewhat, if not used rightly, but gen- 
erally the sulphur prevents fermentation, which all condi- 
ments also do, a recommendation for them as a class. 

HORSERADISH 

Nasturtium or Cochearia armor acta of the mustard 
family (Cruciferae), known to Pliny 23-79 a.d. ; introduced 
from western Europe ; cultivated in most civilized countries ; 
strictly it is a condiment and not a food, but condiments are 
used in, with and as foods. To repeat, with condiments 
foods that pall are made to be relished and more nourishment 
is taken. This is important, especially when the eater is 
under stress of labor, worry or pleasure that exhausts the 
vital forces. How many women there are who cannot eat 
because of domestic stress (as severe illness in the family) 
and will keep up and about for a long time foodless, sleep- 
less and without rest; generally they will go on thus, until 
all at once they break down suddenly in swoons or nervous 
prostration, simply for the want of hearty food; if condi- 
ments will enable such women to eat they act as foods. 

Good: For well people, especially under strain, as a rule. 
Bad: For the sick, with exceptions. 

Morphology: The connective fiber of the root, which is 
the part used, is not so tough, but that when ground 
or grated it can be used raw in small amounts. The micro- 



HORSERADISH 227 

scope shows dark yellow colored oil globules, and an abund- 
ance of starch grains that are very small compared with 
wheat starch grains, being on an average the size of red 
blood corpuscles in man, 1-3 164th of an inch ; some are found 
of the size of the white blood corpuscle (man), so that the 
field in the microscope impresses one as if filled with human 
blood; some of the smaller starch grains had automobile 
motion, like fat globules in milk; the iodine test showing 
them colored, proved they were starch and not fat. The 
substance cells : some spindle shaped, stout, short, and some 
looked as if made by cross walls, as the division of a cane 
fishpole. The walls of cellulose are delicate, spiral tissue 
ducts are large, so that the horseradish root is not toughly 
put together, and hence suitable for raw food. The oil is 
dissipated by drying and the root becomes thus inert in time. 

Chemistry: The fresh root contains oil and bitter resin 
minute in quantity, sugar, extractive gum, starch, albumen, 
acetic acid, acetate and sulphate of lime, water and lignin. 
Winkler's observations infer that myronic acid combined 
with oxide of potassium and that myrosyne exists in the 
root; that the reaction of this acid when horseradish is 
bruised in water produces the volatile oil. Horseradish 
distilled in alcohol yields none of the oil, so that bruising 
is a good thing to make horseradish more pungent. See 
also page 124. 

Physiology: Highly stimulant, exciting the stomach and 
promoting the secretions. It stimulates appetite and invigo- 
rates digestion ; it is not the starch, but the oil that is active. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 1853, while describing the nerves 
of smell, called attention to the fact that a too large taste of 
good horseradish would instantly, before swallowing, go 
through the hard palate and painfully affect, not only the 
nerves of the nostrils, but also the olfactory bulbs above the 
cribriform plates; but the mystery as Dr. Holmes indicated 



228 HORSERADISH 

is how, the mouth being shut, the volatile oil could go 
through the hard palate. Externally oil of horseradish is 
a rubefacient. 

Pathology: No doubt, if it could be borne long enough, 
horseradish in the mouth would produce disturbances of 
tissues. The amount of its starch is so small, when used as 
a condiment, as not to be injurious. 

Sole food: We do not know, but probably not a day. Its 
sole use is so alien, that none but a lunatic would try to live 
on it solely, unless for biological experiment. 

Manifold food: Always. 

Cures: Loss of appetite, weak digestion and torpid secre- 
tions if water enough is drank. Has been recommended for 
palsy and rheumatism. In scurvy is fine. Hoarseness it 
relieves. It is a pure stimulant. Parr states that an infusion 
acts as an emetic and that the root promotes salivary secre- 
tion. 

Head: Its action as lectured on by Dr. Holmes, shows 
what a powerful agent it is for the head, not as a food but as 
a disease producer; not a doubt, though, that it helps the 
head by helping digestion and nutrition. In this sense it is 
good for students and literary men. 

Heart: As it promotes digestion and lessens the gas in the 
bowels it is good. 

Eyes, bone, teeth, nails: Not specially good or bad. 

Hair: So far as sulphur is an assimilable element of 
horseradish, it must be good. 

Intestines: It promotes their secretions, tones up their 
glands, and its sulphur hinders ferment growths. 

How often used: Conventionally during the spring and 
fall and often through the winter. It is specially grateful to 
man, when the frozen soil is thawed in the spring, as most 
every one knows. 



HORSERADISH RADISH 229 

Heat: We do not know, but the small amount of starch 
cannot furnish many heat units. 

Climate: Temperate climes. Cayenne pepper is better 
than horseradish in warm climates. 

Natural: Fortunately yes. Aesthetic and fashionable: 
Certainly. 

Religion: No relation that we know of. 

Fermentation: Its sulphur acts against fermentation. 

Parasites: We do not know of any. 

Intemperance: One after an experience with horseradish 
such as Dr. Holmes describes would not intemperately use it 
again. 

RADISH 

Repliants sativus: Condiment: Mentioned by Pliny and 
now very commonly used in the civilized world. 

Good: For well people. Bad: For the ill. 

Morphology: Is a narrow, tapering to nothing, root about 
four inches long and half inch wide at base ; is covered with 
a beautiful red skin in some varieties ; the white variety 
not often seen in the United States. Its tissues are crisp 
and yet tender, when fresh and kept in water. Wilts if 
dry. There is a globose variety. 

Chemistry: Has a mild tasting oil. See also table, page 
124. 

Physiology: Anti-scorbutic and grateful relish to any 
early summer meal, especially when it first appears. 

Sole food: Never. 

Manifold food: Eaten raw during the meal ; it is usually 
brought on the table in glass tumblers of water ; often the 
way is to dip the moist small end into powdered salt and 
then eat ; for years it used to be cut in thin transverse sections 
and sprinkled in layers with salt and beaten somewhat soft 



23O RADISH 

before eating. Were much eaten with mutton and Cogan 
says the best are white, that they are neither good before 
nor after meat, but as a sauce. 

Disease: When eaten raw after meats it ferments ; in those 
of weak stomachs and feeble digestion it produces fetid gas 
and thus corrupts the breath. 

Cures: They are rightly used only in health. 

Head: If well digested, do not hurt. 

Heart: The sulphur that must be in the oil of radish, 
enough to produce fetid eructations, must be deleterious to 
the heart when too largely used. 

Intestines: If eaten by the ill or wrongfully by the well, 
the result is detrimental to the stomach and intestines, 
especially if nature does not eruct the gas. Drafts of hot 
water or even cool water excite upward and downward 
peristalsis and relieve, but if radish is eaten moderately as 
a sauce there will be little harm to the bowels. 

How often used: Moderately in their season. Hothouse 
radishes out of season are not so good as seasonable ones and 
cannot be so long used. 

Heat: Not appreciable, except to taste. 

Force: Not much. 

Climate: Temperate. 

Natural: Is one of the most natural in condition of all 
edibles. 

Aesthetic: We think there is more real eye and perhaps 
palatal music to fresh, crisp and sound radish as set on the 
white linen table-cloth in cut-glass tumblers, than of almost 
any other vegetable. Its unexpected sight when it first comes 
on the table of fashion or no fashion will set the mouth to 
watering from the buccal glands. 

Ferment: One would think that the sulphur in the radish 
would keep off the yeast action ; but too much of a meal 
being eaten, indigestion follows despite sulphur, 



RADISH MUSTARD 23 1 

Parasites: There are worms that infest radishes and they 
leave the marks of their ravages so plain as to be unmis- 
takable. 

Intemperance: There is danger of over or wrong eating 
of radish when the eye and the palate are much charmed 
with them, but there will be no trouble if the head governs 
the appetite. 

MUSTARD 

Family of the Cruciferae: Brassica or Sinapis alba, white 
mustard; Sinapis nigra, black mustard. (Sinapis because it 
hurts the eyes.) Condiment: Pliny and Vegetius mention it. 
A table is not considered fully set without mustard ; food 
writers say little or nothing of it. Mentioned in the Bible 
a.d. 32. 

Good: When moderately used. Bad: When immoder- 
ately used, it is emetic and the best domestic remedy for 
almost every common poison. 

Condition of feeders: For well people with little appetite, 
especially in the emergencies of hard labor or exercise ; 
is used as in convalescence, in some diseases, and as a 
revulsant universally. 

Morphology: The seed is the part used as a relish. Two 
kinds — white and black (see Chemistry) ; these are as fol- 
lows : biack seeds are small, globular, deep brown in color, 
slightly rugose on the surface, internally yellow ; white seeds 
are larger than the black and of yellowish color; both have 
a fixed oil yielded by pressure, little smell and mild taste, not 
unpleasant; the oil saponifies with oxide of potassium and 
also yields a peculiar acid, "crusic." The white mustard 
seeds are most used in powder and the market. Pure mus- 
tard {commercial) under the microscope: The substance is 
made up of masses of finely reticulated connective fibrous 
tissues in small hexagons, filled with granulized oil and 



232 MUSTARD 

massed together into large globar masses, seven hexagons 
being counted in one diameter; the globes do not touch, but 
are separated by darker hexagons ; these hexagons seen in 
the specimens were generally quite dark in color, and in 
some instances, light (in the Micrographic Dictionary, the 
hexagons are figured with nucleus and nucleolus in each; 
this is correct) ; the field is full of oil globules of large 
size, while they are in smaller subdivisions down to about 
1 -10, oooth of an inch; at first, they seem like minute starch 
grains, but they had automobile movement, did not polarize 
light nor turn purple with iodine ; the last made them yellow 
and the manipulations brought out forms like the oils of 
butter; the connective fibrous tissues observed in this speci- 
men were hexagon-oblong cells six times as long as broad, 
some white masses filled with fine dots, one cell oblong like 
a half carrot filled with dark matter much like the proto- 
plasm of aleurone cells in wheat and which might be called 
myronic cells were it not that myrosyne is said not to be 
found in Sinapis alba. {See Micrographic Dictionary, plate 
2, figure 11, for morphology of mustard seed, which corre- 
sponds with the above description, save the rings of 
connective tissue which we did not happen to meet.) 
Slender tubes like hairs grow at right angles to the long 
diameter of the mustard root, appearing like velvet when the 
soil was washed off. Thus the actual root surface exposed 
to the soil becomes incalculable. 

Chemistry: Is peculiar and not fully understood. First, 
The fixed oil ; Second, Volatile oil obtained from the seeds 
whence No. 1 has been expressed, which does not exist in 
the seed and is formed by the action of water; Third, In 
black mustard seeds, "a," the myronate of potassium; "b," 
and myrosyne an albuminoid like emulin in almonds. Add- 
ing water to black mustard seed, the myrosyne acts as a 



MUSTARD 233 

ferment, producing a reaction between the water, oxide of 
potassium and oxide of myrosyne, which results in No. 2, 
the volatile oil ; water and myrosyne or any of the myro- 
nates do the same. If black mustard seed is treated with 
heat, acids or alcohol, the myrosyne is inert and water 
produces no volatile oil. Water long in contact sometimes 
restores the myrosyne power in part. Fourth, In white 
mustard seed there is myrosyne but no myronate of potash, 
so if white mustard seed and water are added to the black 
in which myrosyne has been coagulated, the volatile oil 
will be produced. The volatile oil is colorless or pale yellow, 
heavier than water and has an exceedingly pungent odor 
and an acid burning taste. Boils at 298 Fahrenheit, slightly 
soluble in water and readily so in alcohol and ether ; with 
alkaline solution yields sulpho-cyanurets, formula C8 H5 
S2 N. It is considered sulpho-cyanuret of allyle ; it is the 
principle on which black mustard and seeds depend for 
activity. White mustard seeds do not develop volatile oil 
when treated with water, but an acrid principle is developed 
for the same use as the black seeds resulting from the 
action of water or sulpho-sinapisin, because mustard deprived 
of sulpho-sinapisin did not develop said activity. If the 
myrosyne or emulsion is inert from heat, acids or alcohol, 
this reaction fails. Sulpho-sinapisin or sinapin C32 H26 
O12 N has an appearance of crystallized sulphate of quinine. 
It appears that it is the sulphur that gives the pungent matter 
in mustard, but the chemists have not got to the bottom of 
the subject and probably never will. See also page 124. 

Physiology: Seeds swallowed by the tablespoonful with 
molasses or softened by soaking in water are laxative ; also 
mustard powder arouses the stomach and is an emetic in 
large tablespoonful doses. It acts on the nose and palate 
worse than the horseradish action. Applied to the skin mixed 



234 MUSTARD 

with water, it blisters with burning pain as to be insupport- 
able to a man much within an hour, oftenest in four minutes, 
but women will bear the same a long time ; kept on too long 
it will blister with obstinate ulceration and even rotting. 
This caution needed when the sick are insensible. On the 
other hand when fussy, very sensitive and apparently in acute 
agony, mustard gives a test when applied, as the patient 
will complain of the plaster, and we know the disease is not 
up to standard of tolerance. Again the really sick sometimes 
almost go to sleep saying the pain of the mustard was a 
relief because so much less than the original pain. (A paste 
of mustard and molasses can be used much longer than the 
ordinary plasters, producing deep redness of skin, without 
blistering ; if the ordinary plaster is used, place two or three 
sheets of thin paper between it and skin.) 

Destruction of tissues: The volatile oil speedily blisters; 
one-sixth of a drop in half an ounce of olive oil internally 
is a dose ; in overdose, it is highly poisonous, producing 
inflammation of the stomach and bowels and imparts its odor 
to the blood and urine. 

Sole food: Cannot be thus used because of the heavy 
shock to the palate, nostrils and olfactory organs. 

Manifold food: Decidedly, and in minute portions. 

Cures: By its stimulation and also by its sulphur control 
of fermentation. 

Head: Good by aiding digestion and increasing the 
amount of force food eaten, but bad when taken too largely, 
by its causing sneezing and distress of the olfactory nerve 
bulbs. 

Heart: Good as an emetic if the stomach is overloaded 
with indigestible food, and when by condimental doses pre- 
venting the evolution of a stomach gas. 

Hair: Good, from its sulphur. 



MUSTARD 235 

Intestines: Promotes the flow of juices and prevents In 
a measure the formation of gases by its sulphur. 

How often used: This varies with individuals, some daily 
and others rarely. 

Heat: Some directly and also indirectly as a stimulant. 

Force: The amount of nitrogen in the volatile oil and 
sinapin must give some force to the eater, but it is the force 
of the whip to the horse rather than the force of the horse's 
hay and oats. If force is needed and only condiments are to 
be had, mustard would be a good sauce; indirectly it fur- 
nishes force by causing more food to be eaten. 

Climate: All. Natural: Yes. 

Aesthetics: Mustard has a place on the tables of fashion 
and is good form in the best of society. This is fortunate, as 
thus there is in almost every house a remedy for poisons and 
colic that often comes from the adherence to the aesthetic 
principles of dietetics. 

Religion: No relation, save the mention made by Christ. 

Builders of tissue: May confer nitrogen on the ganglionic 
nerve centers. 

Skin: Its sulphur is good for the hair, but as mustard, 
all over the world, in all schools of medicine, from ancient 
times, has been used as a poultice for the skin, especially 
in ills that come directly from feeding badly, it is not amiss 
to refer to it here at the risk of repetition : first, the action of 
mustard poultice put on the skin is to give a great and 
powerful sensation of coolness, as if the poultice was a 
sheet of ice ; this is due to the evaporation of the volatile 
oil of mustard which takes heat from the warmth of the skin 
close to it ; the high boiling point, 298 Fahrenheit, is against 
this, but many a time have the eyes smarted from this oil 
when putting on mustard poultices, showing that the oil was 
volatile at ordinary living room temperature. After a few 



236 MUSTARD 

minutes, if the patient is a man, he will howl with the pain 
of burning and often say he is being killed and require its 
removal at once to prevent such a catastrophe ; but a woman 
does not do this, and the poultice to do good must be on ten 
minutes. The skin is reddened as in scarlet fever, sore and 
tender because of its congestion and acute inflammation. 
The effect of this is almost invariably to relieve pain of a 
functional, not organic kind. The reason has not been 
explained. It may be said that abdominal pain from indi- 
gestion is regarded as a colic from partial paralysis, result- 
ing from the gases of fermentation and from overwork, as 
in writer's cramp the muscles are partially paralyzed and 
painful. Hit a man with a birch switch and it will pain from 
partial paralysis ; completely paralyze a man with a crowbar 
and you have no pain but unconsciousness and maybe death. 
Some explain by the doctrine of revulsion, that is making 
another and larger center of partial paralysis, which does 
not interfere with the nerve centers, as in colic, the seat 
of the disturbance is removed by the mustard to the skin and 
the colic disappears because there is not nerve resistance 
enough to cry out in pain while time for recuperation is 
gained meanwhile. Certainly there is pain enough under a 
mustard poultice to illustrate the definition of partial paral- 
ysis and the fact of the intimate vicariousness of the skin 
with the alimentary canal is shown in the evil results of 
terrible burns, even being so bad as to cause pneumonia, 
gastric ulcer, peritonitis and death. Some people say mus- 
tard's place is on the abdomen while turpentine spirits are 
best on the chest; we think so. 

Fermentation: Mustard is apt to ferment if mixed too 
long, but it keeps well much longer than most any other 
vegetable kingdom food mixed with water and exposed to 
the air, because of its sulphur. 

Parasites: Moulds if kept too long. 



MUSTARD — LETTUCE 237 

Intemperance: This is prevented by its physiological 
action ; the pain and vomiting are warning enough to be 
heeded by all eaters. 

LETTUCE 

Lactuca sativa: The word is derived from the old French 
Lettuce, Latin — lac — milk, referring to the juice. Came 
from Europe; genus Lactucse. Many varieties, but can be 
reduced to two 1 — Cos, or leaf lettuce ; Cabbage, or head 
lettuce. Part used in kitchen are the leaves. Mentioned 
by Pliny, Galen, Poet Martial, Cogan, 1589. It is used gen- 
erally raw by the civilized world ; not often boiled except in 
broths. Martial says that lettuce should be eaten last. Cogan 
says "wee eate lettuce in the beginning of our meales." 
Salad is derived from the Latin Sal — salt. Strictly speaking, 
it is a food, for its elements enter biologically into our tissues 
and we shall see lettuce to be a very complex organism. 

Good: For well people. Bad: If improperly used. 

Condition of feeders: They must be in healthy condition 
or at least at the termination of convalescence. 

Morphology: Has the ordinary structure of so-called 
green vegetables, two skins with curious re-entrant curved 
epithelial cells with stomata ; between the skins granular 
matters, chlorophyll, spiral tissues and glands loosely put 
together and thus digestible ; all the tissues are extremely 
delicate, transparent and softish to the feel ; a good subject to 
study under the microscope ; does not polarize light well. 

Chemistry: United States Government report average (as 
purchased) : refuse 18, water 77.1, protein compounds 1. 1, 
fat 3, carbohydrates 2.J, ash 8.1, heat units 85. The dried 
milky juice is called Lactucarium, sometimes known as let- 
tuce opium. Buchner, 1832, found a principle he called 
Lactucin. Walz, 1839, gave analysis as Lactucin, volatile 
oil, a fat dissolved by ether, fat not readily dissolved by 



238 LETTUCE 

ether, reddish-yellow resin, greenish yellow resin, sugar, 
molasses gum, pectic acid, humus, a brown basic substance, 
albumin, oxalic, citric, malic and nitric acids, potash, lime 
and magnesia. Aubergier, 1842, gave this result: Lactucin; 
mannite; asparamide, a substance that colored green the 
sesqui salts of iron ; resin combined with oxide of potassium ; 
a neuter resin-ulmate of potassium; cerin; myricin; pectin; 
albumen; oxalate of potash; malate of potash; nitrate of 
potash ; sulphate of potash ; chloride of potassium , phosphate 
of lime and magnesia; oxide of iron and magnesia; silica. 
Ludwig found 48.68 per cent, insoluble in water and 51.37 
soluble; 42.64 per cent, of the insoluble was lactucerin or 
lactucone, C40 H34 06; 39.9 wax; lignin, a substance in- 
soluble in alcohol, water, ether. The 51.37 soluble part was 
made up of albumin 6.98, lactucerin 1.75, bitter extract 27.68, 
watery extract insoluble in alcohol 14.96. Besides, Ludwig 
found a mannite like substance, oxalic acid, an organic acid 
undetermined, a soft resin, oxide of potassium, magnesia and 
iron. See also page 124. These chemical analyses show 
that lettuce is not the simple substance it looks to be. It 
shows the wonderful industry of French chemists and that 
lettuce must be regarded as remarkable for its organic and 
inorganic elements and more desirable as a relish because 
whatever may be said of the above analyses, lettuce has a 
wonderful variety of material to help sustain life. Besides, 
it shows a breadth of technical culture in the past genera- 
tions, the present cannot afford to ignore but ought to 
emulate. 

Physiology: Galen commends lettuce eaten raw in clean 
water ; says that when young he found it to relieve his 
stomach that was "infested with bile," and when old, he 
found it eaten at evening to be unique for insomnia. No 
doubt the many organic and inorganic elements found in 
lettuce contribute to the health. As before said, the histo- 



LETTUCE 239 

logical and chemical elements are favorable to physiological 
use of lettuce. 

Disease: The olive oil (often not fresh) and vinegar 
that are used in lettuce salad often cause the harm that is 
laid to lettuce. Lemon juice should always be preferred in 
place of vinegar. 

Destroy tissues: No. 

Sole food: No tests have been made. 

Manifold food: Always thus used. We doubt if the 
hungry tramp steals lettuce as sole food. 

Disease: Only by abuse. 

Cure: Insomnia, bilious stomach, loss of appetite, scurvy. 

Head: It is good from the wealth of composition, organic 
chemistry reveals. Lactucarium will harmlessly put to sleep 
when opium fails. 

Heart: Lettuce indirectly is good as a hearty food and 
somewhat directly, as its chemical elements certainly must 
stimulate the heart. 

Eyes, teeth, bone, nails and hair: Good for these organs. 
Lettuce is thus distinguished from all the relishes. 

How often used: Frequently. 

Action on intestines: Properly used, it has a beneficial 
action on them, is not gas producing, is good for the sympa- 
thetic or automatic nerve system that governs independent of 
the will. 

Heat: See Chemistry. 

Force: See Heart. Climate: Hot and temperate. 
Natural: Custom prefers lettuce as fresh as possible and 
with undiminished proportions. 

Aesthetic: Its crispness, green chlorophyll, grateful mild 
taste and possibly its unsuspected virtues by way of mineral 
elements found in its juice, have made it a welcome addition 
to the dining table of fashion whose demands are met by 
hothouse supplies in the winter season. 



240 LETTUCE — DANDELION 

Religion: No particular relation. 

Builder of tissue: Its mineral elements supplied in assim- 
ilable and appreciable quantity are good builders. 

Fermentation: All vegetables ferment. This depends, 
however, on their condition. If fresh, crisp and healthy 
looking and used properly and the condition of the eater 
is good, lettuce will not ferment under ordinary circum- 
stances, but if for example the eater should immediately 
be called to put out a fire, digestion might be stopped entirely 
and which would result in the fermentation of the lettuce. 

Parasites: If lettuce is not sown in good soil, and properly 
manured, its development is poor and its resistance to fungi 
and insects is weak. 

Intemperance: Of course there can be, but it is not often 
seen unless in salads, and then the trouble is generally with 
the vinegar and sweet oil. 

DANDELION 

Leontodon taraxacum or Taraxacum officinale — one of 
the Composite or Aster family. Mentioned in Parr's Dic- 
tionary, 1808, but not in Cogan, whose works are very full 
on plants used as food. It must be used as food in Italy, 
judging from the acts of Italian women who dig for them 
in your lawn unless you drive them off; also used in New 
England generally in the spring of the year, though always 
in Boston market during the winter, being raised under glass 
in large quantities. (Dandelion is the English of the French 
dens-de-lion, because the projections on the leaf are like the 
teeth of lions. Leontodon is the Latin word.) Leaves the 
part used. 

Good: Yes. Bad : No, for it is a mild medicine. 

Condition of feeders: Not for the sick. 



DANDELION 24 1 

Morphology: Its leaves have two faces, with substance of 
spiral tissues (as tubes of circulation for the sap from the 
roots), chlorophyll and cells; it is used when tender and 
loosely adherent in fabric. It has a juice like milk made 
of minute fat like globules, bitter to the taste ; juice abundant 
in the foot stalks of the aster like flowers. 

Chemistry: Not analyzed by the United States Govern- 
ment. Johnson found in the milky juice, Caoutchouc (India 
rubber), bitter extractive, saline matters, a trace of resin 
and a free acid. Starch and sugar have been found in the 
root. Pollex has found in the juice of the root, taraxacin, 
a crystallizable principle. 

Physiology: The root is a mild tonic, diuretic, aperient, 
excites languid livers and resolves the engorgements. The 
loose texture of the leaf is easily digested. 

Disease: None, if not abused. 

Sole food: We do not know ; not long, as it does not have 
nourishment enough, save for a ruminant animal. 

Manifold food: Always. 

Head: Not much good, save as increasing the appetite. 

Eyes, bone, hair, nail and teeth: Not much food for them 
directly. 

Intestines: It digests easily, stimulates the liver and 
promotes the action of the bowel glands. 

How often used: From April to December, save excep- 
tionally when raised under glass in winter. The frequency 
of its use does not compare with that of celery. 

Heat: Unknown. 

Force: Not much force directly, unless in the case of the 
Italian laborers who have been accustomed to long feeding 
on it. 

Climate: Hot and temperate. Natural: Ethics has not 
interfered with dandelions, which are eaten raw or cooked. 



242 DANDELION — PARSLEY 

Fashionable: With all classes, but most with the Italians. 
They are not deemed indispensable as an aesthetic of the 
palate if other greens can be had. 

Religion: No special relation. 

Builder of tissue: Not much as far as we know. 

Effect on the skin: Good, as it is an anti-scorbutic and 
helps digestion. 

Fermentation: Not much in well people eaten moderately. 

Parasites: If the plants are healthy and well fed they are 
not much preyed on by animal or vegetable parasites, but 
if so the parasitism is readily manifest to common sense. 

Intemperance: Not noticeable of medicine. Dandelions 
do not allure nor establish an all-pervading appetite. They 
are meek, modest mild members of the relish family. They 
do not extol nor flaunt forth their real worth. It is probable 
that the said Italians would not so heartily and earnestly 
dig them if they had means enough to purchase other market 
greens when they get these simply by collecting them. 

PARSLEY 

Carum petroselinum (Greek) means rock parsley. 
Opium hortense (Linn). It has aromatic, finely divided 
leaves and greenish yellow flowers, much used for garnish- 
ing dishes and flavoring soups. Mentioned by Pliny. Parr 
says it is commonly eaten at our tables (1808). 

Good: When properly used. Bad: Not very at its worst 
(Parr.) 

Condition of feeders: Cogan and Fernelius say parsley 
is not good for children, nursing mothers and epileptics ; 
so it is for the healthy. 

Morphology: The cuticle of the stalk, and specially the 
leaves, are full of stomata, and the epithelia have curious 
gyrose margins. There is plenty of dense cellulose structure, 



PARSLEY 243 

pitted ducts, chlorophyll disposed in drops in masses and in 
chains on the cell walls — some oil (specimen was old), not 
much — little granular starch as shown by Lugol's solution. 
Parsley is a tough plant to eat and must have sparing use as 
a relish. The oil is its main charm in seasoning, though the 
crisp, green, notched leaves are a line garnishing to a plate 
of fried soft clams for example. The oil is found in all 
parts of the plant. 

Chemistry: Braconnot obtained a peculiar gelatinous sub- 
stance in appearance like pectic acid, which he named apiin. 
The herb is simply boiled in water, the liquor strained and 
allowed to cool ; the apiin then forms a jelly which needs only 
to be washed with cold water ; the seeds contain an active 
principle named apiol. The plant has a pleasant smell and 
is an efficient instrument in the orchestra of palatal and nasal 
music, symphonizing or rather harmonizing well with the 
other olfactory instruments that cooks from time immemorial 
have employed in their cuisine. 

Manifold food: Always and in very minute propor- 
tions. 

Produce disease: Not as commonly used. 

Cures: The root is said to be aperient and diuretic; has 
been used as an aid to active medicine in dropsy and kidney 
diseases. The juicy, fresh root has been used in intermit- 
tent fevers. 

Head: Good, as an odor to food. Heart: May help in a 
mild way by stimulating the desire for substantial food. 

Heat units: Do not know. Force: None directly. 

Climate: Native of Sardinia and the south of Europe; 
everywhere cultivated in gardens. 

Natural: Yes. Aesthetic: Decidedly so, as it comes in the 
perfumes of fashionable foods in soups. In this the fashion 
runs through the high and low strata of society. 

Religion: None especially. Builder of tissue: No. 



244 PARSLEY — CRESS — OKRA 

Fermentation: Oils are not very fermentable and often do 
not digest in the intestines and under ordinary use, parsley 
would not be expected to ferment any more than the oils of 
mustard or cinnamon. 

Parasites: When the seasons are dry, parsley is eaten by 
a small black bug ; it does not mould or mildew ; in good 
health, parsley does not suffer from parasites. 

Intemperance: Would be distastrous because of the 
toughness of the fiber and indigestibility. The dictates of 
common sense will preserve one from harm from parsley 
and the taste would reject it. We have known no instances 
of disease from intemperate eating of parsley. 

CRESS 

Cresso, because found everywhere. Mentioned by Cicero 
and Lucius Columnella, 45 a.d. Two kinds : ( 1 ) Garden 
cress, Lepidium sativum; or Nasturtium hortense (Linn); 
a low plant milder than water cress ; used as a salad alone 
by the healthy and by cases of scurvy and debility of the 
intestines ; its seeds agree in general qualities with mustard 
seeds. (2) Water cress, Sisymbrium nasturtium (Linn), 
is a juicy plant, grows in rivulets or standing fresh waters all 
winter ; but is in the greatest perfection in spring ; leaves are 
moderately pungent; the juice contains all the virtues of the 
plant ; its use as a salad may be long continued, as it is inert 
as a medicine. No chemical analysis at hand. 

OKRA 

Hibiscus esculatus. Used to thicken soups. Fruit is the 
part employed and called Bender Gumbo. Cultivated in 
various portions of the globe. Also Abelmoschus esculatus. 
Okra is known in the market also as the . unripe pods. 



OKRA — SQUASH 245 

Gumbo soup is okra soup. Chemical analysis United States 
Gov't: water 87.4, protein 2, fat 4, ash 7, heat units 230, 
carbohydrates 9.5. We cannot speak otherwise of its value. 

SQUASH 

Cucurbita pepo: They belong to the Cucurbitse, a small 
prostrate genus of the gourd family, the Cucurbitacese, em- 
bracing eighty-six genera and about 63c species mostly 
tropical, cucumber, watermelon, musk melon, pepos, cante- 
lopes, etc., all of which show the great profusion of this 
kind of food. Another example that scientists are not so accu- 
rate in the names of squash as the vernacular. The summer 
pumpkin and winter squash have sixty different kinds, and 
yet the botanist calls them all Cucurbita pepo, save the winter 
which is called maxima. Squash is a contraction of Ameri- 
can Indian word ashquash ; so Cucurbita? refers to the varie- 
ties found here among the Indians — and squash does not 
seem to go any further back. We will proceed to tell what 
we know about winter squashes, the maxima, including the 
crook neck. 

Good: Properly selected and cooked. 

Bad: No, if not abused. 

Condition of feeders: W r ell people only. 

Morphology: Is made up of the rind, about one to two 
inches thick, generally of hard dense structure. It has fifty 
per cent, of refuse skin and connective fibrous tissue, which 
has to be tough and dense to make such hard, rock like 
irregular hollow globar bodies. The hollow is filled with 
yellow strings of connective and vascular tissues holding 
the seeds and stretching out like giant spider webs attached 
to the concavity like the amceba like structure seen inside 
the plum cells. The main part of the substance eaten is 
made up of beautiful clear ovoid cells, containing clear 



246 SQUASH 

protoplasm with irregular yellow nuclei, magnificent under 
polarized light; when cooked, they do not polarize. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: refuse 50 
per cent., water 43, protein 8, fat 3, carbohydrates 5.2, 
ash .4, heat units 125. 

Physiology: Its dense structure makes it difficult to di- 
gest. It is agreeable to eye and palate. 

Disease: Healthy men living on it solely could subsist 
for only seven days. In this time it produced colic, diarrhoea, 
flatus and symptoms of locomotor ataxia. 

Manifold food: Always. 

Cures: None. 

Head: Fed solely, very bad. 

Heart: Bad from its gases; must be used in moderation. 

Eyes, bone, hair, nails, teeth: Bad when fed solely, on 
account of difficult digestion and because of small amount 
of ash. 

Intestines: Is bad for them. 

How often used: Not often and should be used sparingly. 

Force: Uses up so much nerve force in its assimilation 
and also makes so much alimentary canal disturbance that 
it does not furnish much force to the body. 

Climate: Hot and temperate climes. 

Natural: Yes, save being eaten raw. 

Fashionable: Not very. 

Builders of tissue: Not much, because assimilated with so 
much difficulty. 

Fermentation: Very liable to it, because of its carbohy- 
drates and its tough texture. 

Parasites: (1) squash beetle, Diabrotica vittata; (2) 
squash borer, Trochilium cucurbitas 5(3) squash bug, Anasa 
tristis, a large brownish black North American coreid bug 
that sucks the stem sap. 

Intemperance: Common sense protects against it. 



SUMMER SQUASH 

Cucurbita pepo: They are small, crooked necks, smooth 
and tuberculose, some flat, white and scollops, just like a cake 
loaf ; are cooked before ripening into hard gourds ; eaten 
in the summer, are mucilaginous and grateful to the taste. 
No analysis except that of canned squash : water 87.6, protein 
.9, fat .5, carbohydrates 10.5, ash .5, heat units 235. We know 
of no one who has been fed on summer squash exclusively, 
hence it must be esteemed like winter squash, differing from 
it in greater digestibility because more tender. It is a very 
inferior, unsatisfying, weak, sloppy food, only to be used as 
a relish and sparingly. 

PUMPKIN 

Cucurbita pepo: Scientifically the same as summer 
squash, but practically different in customs. This is a 
winter squash, and the largest of all, sometimes weighing 
over one hundred pounds. 

Chemistry : Government analysis : refuse 50 per cent., 
water 46.6, protein .5, carbohydrates 2.6, ash .3, heat units 
60. Pumpkin canned: water 91.6, protein 8, fat .2, carbohy- 
drates 6.7, ash .7, heat units 150; these do not show a great 
amount of nourishment. They are used to make pies on 
Thanksgiving day in large quantities ; do not furnish much 
force for the festivities of said day ; this is more patent, when 
it is considered that mince pies have higher and more uni- 
versal use than pumpkin, as mince pie has force to confer 
from beef. 

Condition of feeders: Well people celebrating a fixed day, 
also the usage of the Pilgrim Fathers, who found pumpkins 
very abundant in America. 

Morphology: It has a large amount of connective fibrous 

247 



248 PUMPKIN 

tissue with soft substance much like the tomato. Hotel 
pumpkin pie— considerable fat in globules of all sizes down 
to granules innumerable that came from the milk and butter 
used in cooking ; specimen mainly made up of quite large cells 
of clear protoplasm with transparent walls and large nucleus 
coagulated by heat, as in cooked tomato ; cell walls were very 
heavy, wrinkled, twisted and contracted; beautiful objects 
under polarizers ; the nuclei were yellow ; there was one large 
plate of tegument made up of very small prisms set side by 
side and yellow ; iodine showed some starch, probably 
foreign; a collection of spiral tissue with oblong cells laid 
parallel around as in banana. Another specimen showed the 
outside tegument made up of good sized hexagonal, penta- 
gonal and round cells thrice as large as those above named ; 
large coils of spiral tissues beautifully shown, large stomata, 
spindle shaped long cells of cellulose ; also large dark yellow 
mass of tegument, rumpled and rolled from cooking; some 
large masses of disrupted cells looking like cooked tomato 
cells. In some parts, the cooking was so thorough as to 
fuse all the pumpkin elements in to one homogeneous mass ; 
under polarized light, the spiral tissues, cellulose, tegument 
and other details were simply glorious. 

Physiology: Hard on the digestion and on tapeworms. 
In 1820, Dr. Mongery, a Cuban, published that he gave about 
three ounces of fresh raw pumpkin in the form of a paste 
followed by two ounces of honey, which honey was repeated 
twice at hour intervals ; this resulted in the expulsion of the 
worm ; the seeds have been generally used and the Cuban 
seeds are the best as a vermifuge 

Sole food: Not longer than squash — seven days. 

Multiple food: Generally in the form of pie. 

Produce disease if solely fed: In all probability like 
squash. 



WATER MELON 

Cucumis melo or Citrullus vulgaris are two species of the 
Gourd family. Extensively cultivated in the East Indies, 
China, Egypt, France and the United States ; grow luxuri- 
antly in Palestine, even in a dry and sandy soil. Mentioned 
by Pliny. Has a refreshing, watery juice. 

Good: When properly used. Bad: If abused. 

Condition of feeders: The hot and thirsty ones. 

Morphology: Water melons are oblong, with finely 
rounded unpointed ends, green color spotted with white 
or whitish. The rind is thick (half inch) and dense and 
cuts with a crisp feel ; next the rind is the reddish and pur- 
plish colored spongy parenchyma filled with seeds and grad- 
ually shading off from the rind ; this inner substance is made 
of spiral tissue ducts, loose connective fibrous tissue, filled 
with beautiful oval cells of large size (for the microscope) ; 
these cells have coloring matter corresponding to chlorophyll, 
a nucleus in the midst of fibrillated protoplasm which when 
ripe is sometimes found undergoing the amoeboid changes of 
protoplasm and forms one of the most beautiful exhibitions 
for study and observation ; generally the amoeba looks as if 
a spider were stretched in the inside of the hollow ovoid, 
the number of legs varying, yet so planted in the concave 
surface of the large cell, that the nucleus is suspended in the 
middle of the clear water of the cell. But like all amoebae 
they vary very much ; the motions sometimes are quite rapid. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: refuse 58, 
water 39, protein .2, carbohydrates 2.7, ash .1, heat units 55. 
Edible portion: water 92.9, protein .3, carbohydrates 6.5, ash 
.1, heat units 130. 

Physiology: The loose fiber, the large ovoid cells filled 
with water and nuclein, the fine flavor and the coolness are 
very desirable. In Egypt it is justly pronounced one of the 

249 



250 WATER MELON 

most delicious refreshments, that nature amidst her con- 
stant attention to the wants of man affords in the season of 
violent heat. This well explains the regret expressed by the 
Jews for this old-time fruit, whose pleasant liquor had so 
oft quenched their thirst and relieved weariness in their 
servitude and which would have been exceedingly grateful 
in a dry and scorching desert (Harris) ; water melons afford 
a large supply of nuclein at a very small cost. Cogan speaks 
of melons (water) being cold and moist and doing the least 
hurt if eaten before meals. As a medicine they act on the 
kidneys. 

Disease: Not harmful; some people eat them in large 
quantities with impunity. 

Sole food: Do not know. Have known a man to make 
a meal of them and there must be many like instances when 
the usual depredations on fields of water melons are consid- 
ered. Probably no cultivated fruit is stolen more largely. 
The analysis shows but little nutriment. 

Multiple food: They are used largely on the table as a 
dessert, but they are eaten alone raw and mixed with other 
foods in the stomach. 

Cures: Not much more than heat and thirst and the 
longing appetite for them. 

Head: Not of much good. 

Heart and eyes: Not much, save as feeding the desires of 
one and the longing of the other. 

Bone, hair, nail and teeth: Not much. 

Intestines: Good, as they are easily digested and assim- 
ilated and tone up the bowel glands. 

Force: Not much directly except from nuclein and indi- 
rectly as a relish. There may be some active principles that 
our chemists have not detected in water melon. We need 
analysis as thorough as that of mustard made by French 
chemists. 



WATER MELON — MUSK MELON — TURNIP 25 I 

Climate: Best in hot climates. 

Natural: Yes. 

Aesthetic: Decidedly. 

Religious history: See Physiology. 

Fermentation: Not much properly eaten. They are ab- 
sorbed very soon. 

Parasites: They are preyed on by fungi, but do not 
remember seeing them invaded by insects ; the vines are, by 
both, but the latter are not edible. 

Intemperance: Yes, very by some, but do not know of any 
case of poisoning or colic ever having been brought to our 
notice as physicians. 

MUSK MELON 

Cucumis mclo is another species. The United States 
Government analysis is as follows : as purchased, refuse 50, 
water 44.8, protein .3, carbohydrates 4.6, ash .3, heat units 
90. Edible portion: water 82.9, protein 6, carbohydrates 
4.6, ash 3, heat units 90. 

Nutmeg melon is a variety of musk melon. No analysis 
given. 

Melons are to be classed as relishes. 

TURNIP 

The fleshy, globar, edible root of Brassica campestris ; 
variety Rapa of the Crucifene or mustard family. Known 
to the Romans and Greeks and mentioned by Pliny and 
Columnella. Used extensively for food for man and cattle. 

Good: In moderation. Bad: If fed exclusively or in 
excess. 

Condition of feeders: Makes a great difference; they 
must be well adults. 



252 TURNIP 

Morphology: They are somewhat semi-solid, with a 
tough, fibrous (pitted ducts), leathery, mild, aromatic sub- 
stance; the substance cells are large and small, usually 
globose, walls thin, inside clear protoplasm with nucleus 
and nucleolus which iodine colors yellow. The colloid proto- 
plasm is in some scant and others filling up the cells ; in 
the latter case, when cooked, the protoplasm is contracted, 
leaving clear spaces between it and the concave walls of the 
cell and also colored yellow by iodine. No starch found. 
The fabric is rather dense and tough. 

Chemistry: United States Government analysis as pur- 
chased: refuse 30, water 62.2, protein i, fat .1, carbohy- 
drates 21, ash 1.8, heat units 625. See also page 124. 

Physiology: Parr says: "Turnips are to many an agree- 
able food, but to watery and flatulent weak stomachs incon- 
venient. The yellow turnip has a sweeter and more muci- 
laginous taste and is apparently the most nutritious." (Does 
sweetness and mucilaginous taste make a food nutritious?) 
We trow not ; nutritious food may be sweet, but all sweets 
are not nutritious, because they do not meet the chemical 
and practical tests. Cogan says turnips nourish much if 
they be first well boiled in water and afterwards in the fat 
broth of flesh and eaten with pork or beef. No doubt they 
need much boiling to soften the dense fibrous tissue and 
make their nutritive elements digestible. Properly cooked, 
admirable food for rickets and fractures. 

^Disease: They can be fed on solely for only about seven 
days. 

Manifold food: In soups and with other food. A New 
England boiled dinner is generally corned beef, with pota- 
toes, turnips, parsnips, etc. 

Cures: Not much, save sparingly with other foods in 
scurvy ; are too hard of digestion as usually cooked. 

Head, heart, eyes, bone, hair, nails, teeth: From the 



TURNIP — BEETS 253 

chemist's standpoint good, but bad from the physiological 
difficulties of assimilation that ordinary cooking does not 
wholly remove. 

Intestines: May cause much trouble. 

How often used: Should not be often. 

Force: According to the chemist, yes, but because of 
the difficult digestion, no. 

Natural: Yes and eaten raw sometimes. Sometimes tur- 
nips taken from the field may be eaten raw with impunity 
because of out-of-door exercise. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: Are not beautiful but homely. 

Builders of tissue: If assimilated, splendid. 

Fermentation: Very liable to it, because of their hard 
and resistant tissues and their tendency to lodge in the 
bowels. 

Parasites: I, a louse, aphis, raphae; 2, flea beetle, P. 
striolata, United States ; 3, turnip flea — jack fly, a muscid 
fly, Anthomyia radicum, whose maggot bore in roots ; 4, saw 
fly, Athalia centifolia, larvae devours turnip leaves ; also 
subject to fungi if not properly fed with soluble mineral 
food. 



BEETS 

Belong to the goose foot family, eighty genera, five 
hundred species. The pig weed or goose foot weed are 
common. The common beet here referred to is Beta vul- 
garis, cultivated in the United States as the mangel wurzel. 
Used as a table food, to make sugar and cattle feed. Parts 
used are the leaves and root ; there are more than forty 
varieties cultivated in the United States. Mentioned by 
Pliny. Dioscorides names the wild beet, Limonium. Parr 
says it grows on the sea coasts of England and Holland. 
Varieties are distinguished by their color more than prop- 



254 BEETS 

erties. M. A chard, about 1800, attempted to extract sugar 
with a little success; now it is a staple production. 

Good: Not very. 

Bad: Rather, as beets could not be lived on alone very 
long. 

Condition of feeders: Well adults with strong digestion. 

Morphology: Is globar with tapering central axis root; 
feel is dense and harder than that of turnips ; has the usual 
substance cells, with connective fibers and spiral tissue sap 
vessels, etc. There are spots of dense fibrous tissues that 
feel hard and correspond with the lignin of date stones. 
Beets are therefore hard food to digest unless properly 
cooked. 

Chemistry : United States Government report, edible por- 
tion, average percentage: water 87.6, protein 1.6, fat .1, 
carbohydrates 9.6, ash 1.1, heat units 210. As purchased: 
refuse 20, water 70, protein 1.3, fat .1, carbohydrates J.J, 
ash .9, heat units 170. Saccharose or cane sugar is also 
found in beets ; sugar maple and sorghum. The sugar in 
beets is about ten per cent peligot. 

Physiology: Parr says its juice is an errhine that causes 
a flow of the nasal excretions without sneezing. The dense 
physical properties of the beet render it difficult of digestion. 

Disease: All the usual functional and organic changes 
that come from indigestible fermenting foods. 

Sole food: About seven days. 

Multiple food: In New England boiled dinners and as 
a pickle in vinegar. 

Cure anything by feeding: We know not. 

Head food: Not much. 

Heart, eyes, bone, teeth, hair, nails, intestines: Ranks as 
all indigestible foods even when rich in mineral elements. 

How often used: Should be rarely. 



BEETS — PARSNIP 2 5 5 

Heat: A poor show in this line, as wheat starch averages 
1710. 

Force: Not much. Climate: Temperate. 

Natural: Never eaten raw, but are boiled until soft, as 
foods and pickles. 

Fashionable: Mostlv because of looks. 

Builder of tissue: Not much. 

Fermentation: Are liable to it because of its sugar and 
also its tough tissue. 

Parasites: A small fly, Anthomyia betse, whose larvae 
eat the beet leaves. 

Intemperance: We know of no cases of intemperance 
in the eating of beets. 

PARSNIP 

Pastinaca sativa or Pecedanum sativum is of the 
Parsley family; is used as a culinary vegetable and fodder 
for live stock ; European in origin ; mentioned by Pliny, 
also Dioscorides, Galen and Mathias. Used extensively in 
the Southern States. 

Good: Compared with wheat no. 

Bad: Easily made so as it is hard to digest. 

Condition of feeders: Must be well and best for out-of- 
door laborers. 

Morphology: Root the part used, which is large, spindle 
shaped and light colored. 

Chemistry: United States Government report, edible por- 
tion, as purchased, averages: water 79.9, protein 1.7, fat .6, 
carbohydrates 16.1, ash 1.4, heat units 355. As purchased: 
refuse 20, water 63.9, protein 1.3, fat .5, carbohydrates 12.9, 
ash 1.4, heat units 285. Pastinacea opopanox has been 
analyzed further, and as it gives an idea of what might be 
found in Pastinaca sativa it is here given. The juice is 



256 PARSNIP 

had from the base of the stalk of the root and dried. 
Chemically it is a gum resin with other ingredients. Pelle- 
tier gives the following percentages : gum 33.4, resin 42, 
starch 4.2, extractive 1.6, wax 0.6, malic acid 2.8, lignin 9.8, 
volatile oil and loss 5.9. Traces of india rubber. 

Physiology: Cogan says they are diuretic and carmina- 
tive; Galen calls them restorative. Their dense structure 
makes them hard of digestion and they need much boiling 
and after boiling to be fried. Parr says they are very 
nutritious. 

Disease: Is that of marked indigestible foods, gas and 
colic. 

Sole food: Do not know, probably not many days if even 
parsnips could be fed on one day. 

Manifold food: Yes, always and in very small propor- 
tions as a relish. 

Cures: We know of none. 

Bones, hair, head, heart, eyes, nails, and teeth: Only good 
as a relish and not as the substantial part of the meal. 

Intestines: Not good because of toughness of interstitial 
substance. 

How often used: Rarely in these days. In Cogan's time, 
the common people in England used parsnips as meat in 
autumn and specially on fish days. 

Force: Difficult to get any, save in out-of-door laborers. 

Climate: Temperate. Natural: Yes. 

Aesthetic: The peculiar flavor of parsnips is agreeable 
to many. 

Builder of tissue: If eaten in small quantities so as not 
to interfere with digestion and assimilation. 

Fermentation: Like all other hard to digest vegetable 
foods. 

Parasites: Parsnip web worm, Depressaria heracliana, 
the caterpillar of a European moth now widely distributed 



PARSNIP — CARROT 257 

and destructive to the rlowerheads and roots, and of other 
plants besides. 

Intemperance: Possibly, but have observed none. 

Proper place for parsnips as food: Feeding stock who 
can eat them raw, as they have stomachs adapted to them ; 
possibly if man when weaned was obliged to live on raw 
parsnips he might get used to them, but the Digger Indians 
in California, who are said to dig and live so much on 
raw roots, are not such specimens of humanity as to com- 
mend the general use of raw roots. 

What caution should there be about the zvild parsnip: 
Pastinacae sylvestris. It may be mistaken for the sativa or 
garden parsnip, but eaten its roots cause a painful heat in 
the mouth, soon followed by thirst, the pupils gradually 
dilate, sight is lost, and delirium comes on. When discharged 
by vomiting these symptoms abate, but the dilatation of 
the pupil is the last symptom which disappears. Boiling 
makes wild parsnips harder and the good softer ; an easy 
test added to that of the taste. 

CARROT 

A cultivated variety of the Parsley family, reddish 
yellow and spindle shaped, not produced the first year by 
the Daucus carota, a biennial which in the wild state is a 
widely naturalized noxious weed with white root ; mentioned 
by Pliny. Cogan classes carrot with parsnips as food. 
Galen thinks them better food than parsnips ; has been used 
as food for ages. 

Good: Not very. Bad: Because it is a tough root. 

Condition of eaters: Only the strong and well may eat 
them; the sick and feeble never unless fully cooked. 

Morphology: The cultivated carrot is hard, reddish, 
fleshy, thick, tough, conical, rarely branched, smell pleasant 



258 CARROT 

and with a peculiar sweet mucilaginous taste. Boiled it 
becomes tender and not very flatulent (Cogan). 

Chemistry: United States Government report, percent- 
ages, as purchased : refuse 20, water 70, protein .9, fat .3, 
carbohydrates 7.4, ash .7, heat units 175. Edible portion: 
refuse 83.2, protein 1.1, fat .4, carbohydrates 9.2, ash 1.1, 
heat units 210. Wood and Bache give carrots constituents 
as follows : sugar crystallizable and not ; starch, saline mat- 
ters, extractive, gluten, albumin, volatile oil, vegetable jelly 
or pectin, malic acid, liguin, and a ruby red crystallizable, 
odorless, tasteless principle called carotin. Braconnot dis- 
covered and named the vegetable jelly pectin. ' It is abundant 
in fruits and vegetables more or less. See also table page 
124. 

Physiology: The dense texture renders carrot a hard 
food to digest, unless carefully cooked and eaten in small 
amounts as a relish. For cattle it is all right. 

Disease: In large amounts and often eaten, carrots must 
only become sources of disease changes. 

Sole food: We do not know, but judging from experi- 
ments that have been made, only for a few days. 

Multiple food: Used to flavor soups and as a relish with 
other foods ; also in vegetable hash. 

Cures: They are noted as medicine in the Edinburgh 
Pharmacopoeia, 1854, raw, as poultices for bad ulcers. The 
root is prepared by scraping and is an active stimulant from 
its oil, also used boiled soft. Galen deemed carrots better 
than parsnips as a restorative. The wild variety seeds are 
used as a medicine in chronic kidney disease and dropsy. 
Their aromatic properties adapt them to the stomach as 
a cordial. 

Head and heart: Good only as a cordial. 

Eyes, bone, hair, nails, teeth: The chemical elements 



CARROT — CABBAGE 259 

show them to be good for these organs, but the barrier is 
their difficult digestion. 

Intestines: Must be eaten with caution, otherwise will 
ferment. 

Force: Not much. 

Climate: Temperate. 

Natural: Save from the changes made by boiling. 

Fashionable : As a relish. 

Builder of tissue: If assimilated, which is doubtful. 

Fermentation: Liable to it. 

Intemperance: Very possible, because they can so readily 
upset the bowels. Those with delicate digestion should 
best use them as a flavor to soups. 

CABBAGE 

Brassica oleracea. The popular American varieties are 
curled, drum head, Savoy, Mammoth drum head, Stone 
mason, red, Dutch, etc. Belongs to the Mustard family; 
Cruciferse : name derived from Cabocha — old French. Men- 
tioned by Cicero, so it has long been known and used 
largely to-day, specially by the Germans as sour krout. 

Good: Not very, save as a relish. Bad: Yes, unless 
carefully used. 

Condition of feeders: Must be grown, strong and well ; 
not good for others. 

Morphology: Is loose in structure, generally somewhat 
tough and hard to digest unless thoroughly cooked. Speci- 
men cooked showed the usual morphology, save stomata ; 
the fibrous tissues abundant ; substance cells small, dia- 
phanous, clear, delicate ; spiral tissues large ; cell contents 
clear. 

Chemistry: United States Government reports, edible 



26o CABBAGE 

part : water 94.3, protein 2.9, fat .7, carbohydrates .08, 
ash 2.7, heat units 225; as purchased: refuse 15, water 
70.8, protein 1.8, fat .3, carbohydrates 4.9, ash 1.2, heat 
units 140. See table page 124. Compared with wheat 
cabbages chemically fall as follows : water, cabbage has 
94.3, wheat has 10.4; protein, cabbage has 2.9 per cent., 
wheat 12.3; fat, cabbage has .7, wheat 1.7 ; carbohydrates, 
8 per cent, in cabbage. 75 per cent, in wheat; ash, cabbage 
has 2.J per cent., and wheat has .9; here a line where 
cabbage excels wheat. Heat units: cabbage 225, wheat 
1.685. Composition of sour krout, United States Govern- 
ment report: water 86.3, protein 1.8, fat .8, carbohydrates 
4.4, ash .7, heat units 145. 

Physiology: Parr says that "cabbages are supposed to 
ha^ve a stronger tendency to putrefaction than most other 
vegetables, as in putrifying they exhale an offensive odor, 
that much resembles that of putrifying animals (probably 
sulphuretted hydrogen). Therefore it seems reasonable to 
believe they are easily digested and hence very nutritious" 
(this is by no means true). Dr. Galen says "all of them 
may be considered as supplemental provision only and are 
seldom chosen by the quantity of nourishment they afford 
but by the tenderness of their texture and the fulness and 
sweetness of their juice." In general they are flatulent 
and inconvenient in well stomachs. 

Physiology: Cabbages are far from being unsalutary. 
They neither induce nor promote a putrid disposition in 
the human body, but on the contrary they loosen the bowels 
and produce much flatulency (when improperly cooked). 
Boiling destroys their laxative quality. 

Disease: The blackness and odor found in decaying 
cabbage is due to sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen ; 
there is no wonder that cabbage is laxative, for the solar 
plexus of nerves, to get rid of the offending gases, causes 



CABBAGE 



26l 



downward peristalsis to eject the offenders. There is con- 
siderable difference between normal peristalsis and irritative 
peristalsis ; one is not exhaustive, the latter is ; so cabbage 
would lessen rather than increase the sum of vital forces 
and if long continued would bring on the disastrous results 
of baked beans herein cited. The fact that cabbage gen- 
erates gas so speedily indicates that its disease effects 
would be felt sooner than that of beans. We should look 
for catarrh, colic, neurasthenia, sometimes making patient 
act as if drunk or in acute locomotor ataxia. 

Sole food: We know of no such trials having been 
made lasting over one day ; probably not over seventeen 
days. 

Multiple food: Always, eaten for the flavor and feeling 
under the teeth. 

Cures: Taken in moderation anti-scorbutic ; furnishes 
lactic acid that acts like citric acid. 

Sour krout is made as follows: Cut the cabbage into 
thin slices, put them in a cask (cleaned, dried and lined 
with leaven) ; on each layer sprinkle a layer of salt and 
press down ; when the cask is full and the liquor drained 
off, cover with a clean cloth, then lay on a loose cask head 
and weight it for continued pressure. Let it stand in a 
warm room until it ceases to ferment, then use by boiling 
in water for two hours or more, pour off the liquor, add 
butter and eat as other vegetables. 

Heat: As an anti-scorbutic, in moderate quantity, cab- 
bage may be good for the head, but certainly bad when it 
evolves gases in the intestines. 

Heart: Not good because of its easy fermentation in 
the alimentary canal and its inability to sustain life as sole 
food. 

Eyes, bone, hair, nails, teeth: The very high amount, 
seven per cent., of ash renders cabbage a fine food for these 



262 CABBAGE 

organs, could it be assimilated. While it does not have the 
textile density of the conventional bean, still its indigest- 
ibility is against the high chemical character as food, and 
must be considered by those who are after the above organs 
existing in normality. 

Intestines: Is bad unless very carefully cooked and eaten 
in small amounts. 

How often used: Practically not more than once a week 
by the average American ; would sicken on it if used daily. 

Heat units: 22$ against the 1800 of sugar shows cab- 
bage to be low in this respect. 

Force: Had our Government given the percentage of 
the composition of the ash of cabbage (which is large) of 
seven per cent, we might judge more of its force powers. 
Bui here again we meet the bar of indigestion, so that the 
only way to find out the force of cabbage is to feed men 
solely on it and set them to work ; one thing is quite certain, 
however, that the amount of force lost in digestion and 
assimilation of cabbage would be so great as to diminish 
much the amount of force actually assimilated. A com- 
mercial business for profit is usually estimated by the gains, 
rather than by the amount of business done. 

Climate: Temperate. Natural: Yes, as sometimes cab- 
bage is eaten raw. 

Aesthetic: Not much, save the taste and flavor. It is 
not a spectacularly beautiful fashionable food and its odor 
is decidedly unsesthetic. 

Builder of tissue: Not much if eaten in small quantities 
and is difficult in large quantities to digest. 

Fermentation: The fetid odor of decaying cabbage points 
to a peculiar fermentation, not the common alcoholic nor 
vinegary, but the lactic acid alcohol and vinegar fermenta- 
tion combined in the evolution of sulphuretted and phos- 
phuretted hydrogen. We believe that the intestines of large 



CABBAGE GRAPE 263 

sour krout eaters could be made to furnish lactic acid 
alcohol. 

Parasites: (i) cabbage aphis, plant louse, Aphis bras- 
sicse; (2) cabbage beetle or flea, Phyllotrata vittata; (3) 
cabbage bug, a brilliant colored pentatomid, Murgantia his- 
trionica, from Central America to the United States ; (4) 
cabbage butterfly, Pieris rapae, European export; (5) cab- 
bage fly, a muscid Anthromya brassicse, whose larvae 
(maggots) feed on the roots; (6) cabbage moths, (A) 
Mamestra brassica, (B) Plusia M, (C) Plutetta cruci- 
ferarum; (7) cabbage worms, larvae of said flies. Cabbages 
are thus very much preyed upon. 

GRAPE 

Genus-Vitis, many species; extensively cultivated for 
eating and making wine and raisins. Many of the United 
States varieties, as the Isabella, Catawba and Concord, are 
from the wild northern fox grape, Vitis labrusca ; others as 
the Scuppernong are from the southern species, Vitis vul- 
prina. The hundreds of Old World varieties are the Vitis 
vinifera. Some of these have been successful in the United 
States and the American Pomological Society looks to 
development of our native grapes for successful culture. 

Raisins are dried grapes containing much sugar, cured 
in the sun or oven, used in dessert or cooking; known as 
seedless Sultanas, large or ordinary, and currants or corinth 
raisins. Raisins come chiefly from the Mediterranean and 
California. Wine is the fermented juice of the grape, called 
"dry" when there is little or no sugar, and sweet when the 
sugar is plainly perceptible to the taste ; some one hundred 
and sixty-four varieties of wine are given as a partial list 
in the Standard Dictionary. Must (Latin Mustum-new) 
is the expressed juice of the grape sweet and unfermented ; 



264 GRAPE 

new wine. Grape use dates back to 2348 B.C., and is men- 
tioned as wine in ancient histories. We will here treat of 
grapes and raisins and must consider wine later, under 
Alcohol liquors, with special note on Must. 

Good: As dessert and some consider for chronic dis- 
eases. All mankind agree to their use when perfectly ripe, 
newly gathered or kept a few days (and not sometimes). 
They are thought thus to nourish better and be less laxative. 

Bad: Not if properly used, and in accordance with 
common sense. 

Condition of feeders: Well people, though as seen above 
some convalescents might use them. 

Morphology: Grapes are usually globar, or obovoid ; 
have, when ripe, a thick skin of varying colors, black, 
purplish, green, etc., soft and elastic to the feel. The inside 
of the grape skin is soft, velvety, of a reddish color, and 
this part put under the microscope is a most interesting 
object with its prismatic crystals of sugar and its fine 
acicular or needle crystals of cream of tartar, free or aggre- 
gate and specially in large bundles inside the cells of said 
pulpy skin., In the skins there are glands, that secrete a 
beautiful odor that is very aesthetic and attractive, called 
sometimes the bouquet of grapes. The grape pulp proper 
is quite large comparatively and has for its center a collec- 
tion of seeds ; over these is enveloped a mass of greenish 
white stiff jelly like substance that has no particular form 
but seems to be, as it were, glued together; these central 
masses of grapes when bitten are bitterish, a little acrid 
and astringent, reminding one of tannin. The grape tissues 
are not very tough ; the juice includes the watery portion 
of the skin and pulp and is not separated for eating. 

Chemistry: United States Government report, grapes 
ground and dried, as purchased : water 34.8, protein 2.9, 
fat .6, carbohydrates 60.5, ash .2, heat units 1,205. The 



GRAPE 265 

Vitis vitifera (European) contains malic and tartaric acid, 
racemic acid, called by Berzelius para tartaric acid from 
its resemblance to tartaric acid. Its chemistry varies with 
soil and climate, and the varieties from culture and situation 
are innumerable. It also contains sugar ; probably the 
sugar in the above analysis makes up the bulk of the 60.5 
of carbohydrates. This sugar is grape sugar or glucose 
and deserves an extended notice. Formula C6 H12 08, 
found besides in the juices of plants and honey along with 
levulose or fructose; granules of glucose separate from the 
juice of grapes in drying; is found in malted grain and made 
from starch by the action of sulphuric acid. Glucose is 
also the same as liver sugar ; long boiling of the watery 
solution of cane sugar with dilute acid will produce glucose. 
Found in molasses and honey dew, Syrian and Kurdistan 
manna and in wheat. Glucose is not so sweet as cane sugar 
or saccharine. In Portugal, the deep colored grape, Tinta 
francisca, yields sugar twenty-four per cent, of Must weight, 
like the tonriga, and the white delicious perfumed verdello 
grape, twenty-two per cent, sugar of Must weight. See 
also page 124. 

Physiology: Pleasant and grateful to the taste when ripe 
and refreshing to those with febrile complaints. Largely 
taken, they are laxative and diuretic from the bitartrate of 
potassium or cream of tartar. They have always been 
regarded as nourishing. Galen proved by experience that 
vineyard keepers feeding only on grapes and figs for three 
months became very fat, but the flesh so gotten soon wears 
away again, because it is not firm and fast, but loose and 
over-moist, and naturally so because sugar is a carbohydrate 
and fat is also a carbohydrate. 

Destruction of tissue: Not exactly, according to Galen, 
when he notes that grape eaters grow fat and waste with 
time but practically so. 



266 



GRAPE 



Sole food: In the grape cure for chronic diarrhoea the 
sick have been represented as living on them from one to 
three months. We knew a man who tried it and could not 
live on them but for a month, and hardly that time. 

Multiple food: Generally at the close of the meal. They 
are often kept on the table and eaten between meals. 

Produce disease: Grapes if freely fed on will produce 
flatulence and its consequent troubles. Appendicitis has 
been often laid to grape seeds, justly in some cases; but 
we think such cases are rare. If the appendix is in a normal 
condition, the grape seeds are tolerated, as it will push 
same into the bowel. 

Cures: So said in the grape cure, and there is no doubt 
of its truth in certain chronic cases. A matter of judgment 
on the part of the physician. 

Head and heart: Good in health. 

Bone, eyes, hair, teeth, nails: The 1.2 per cent, of ash 
is favorable for these organs. 

Intestines: Particularly good for them as testified by 
same in chronic diarrhoea or constipation of the bowels. It 
may be because of sole feeding. Other things being equal 
the system will thrive on few articles of food for a time, 
better than on many. 

How often used: Ethics allow them at one or two meals 
a day through their season for well people. It is a common 
custom to eat them at breakfast, though we believe them 
to be better borne if eaten after a meal. 

Heat: 1,205 high up. If grapes are a fall and summer 
food why should there be so many heat units for the hot 
weather? People eat them for their cooling properties. 

Force: We have found considerable in grapes which 
comes from the protein, 2.9. 

Climate: Mild and hot climates. 



GRAPE 267 

Natural: Ripe grapes are very natural food and always 
eaten raw. Unripe or green grapes are cooked into stew, 
jelly or sauce. 

Aesthetic: Peculiarly so. 

Religious aspect: Wines new and old have been objects 
of much religious condemnation and penalty. These will 
receive notice later. Grapes are not often mentioned; one 
instance is specially remarkable for the size of one cluster 
of the grapes of Eschol which the Jewish spies brought to 
show the fertility of Canaan, and there are other witnesses 
to prove that the grapes of this region grew to this great 
size ; even now this incident was a great item in the history 
of the Jews' religion. 

Builders of tissue: Largely of fat. 

Fermentation: See Alcohol and Must. 

Parasites: (1) grape curculio or weevil, Caeliodes ine- 
qualis ; (2) a gall making curcurlionid, Banidius seostris; 
(3) fungus, Oidium Tuckeri, mold or vine mildew; (4) 
grape hopper, Etrythroneura vitis; (5) grape leaf blight 
fungus, Cercospora viticola; (6) grape leaf spot, thought 
to be conidia Laestadia Bidwellii, black rot fungus ; (7) 
grape louse, Phylloxera; (8) mildew, Peronospora viticola 
downy ; (9) powdery mildew, Uncinula ampelopsidis ; 
(10) grape moth, Eudemis botrana larva; (11) ripe rot, 
Gleosporium f ructgenicum ; (12) bird's eye rot or anthrac- 
nose, due to Sphaceloma diplodiella; (13) white rot, due to 
Coniothyrium diplodiella. (14) widely destructive black 
rot, due to Laestadia Bidwellii. Surely this list from the 
Standard Dictionary is enough to show the attention of 
mankind given to the plants and animals that prey on 
grapes, whose cultivation furnishes a livelihood to many 
people. 

Intemperance : Have known of collegians glutting them- 
selves with borrowed grapes ; little ill effects, 



MUST 

The juice of the grape, fresh, unfermented, is practically 
a liquid form of grapes and may be considered as food, in so 
far as grapes are food. Some think that Must should not 
be called wine, which means the fermented juice of grapes ; 
then of course unfermented wine is a misnomer. From the 
universal presence of alcohol and vinegar yeast plants in the 
air and their presence on the outside of grape skins it cannot 
but be that alcohol plants must be in the Must ready to act 
under the environments of temperature and of air that has 
more or less of alcohol plants in it, but when air is excluded 
or the Must is boiled down to stum (must spelled backwards) 
then it remains as Must and is sold to-day at thirty-five cents 
a pint for communion purposes in New York City, or two 
dollars and eighty cents a gallon, which certainly is a good 
price for grape juice. 

Religion: The last paragraph shows the value of Must for 
religious purposes. The religious world has been from time 
to time stirred with the question of using wine at communion, 
some arguing against it and using the Must, which as said 
before is sweet, and called glukose, but the new wine is in 
Acts applied to a more saccharine and therefore inebriating 
fermented wine, hence those who use the term Must or new 
wine should remember that philologists are not always any 
more particular than botanists, who include a vast number of 
grapes, all under one term, Vitis Unifera, and those who 
insist that Must should be used at communion may remember 
that it was Oinos — wine fermented, that the Saviour used at 
the Passover communion and made at Cana in Galilee. The 
word wine occurs in the New Testament thirty-seven times, 
Oinos occurs thirty-three times, Glukos once. In the He- 
brew Bible "new wine" occurs twenty-seven times, and 
Tiyorosh, fairly fermented wine, occurs one hundred and 
seventy times, so that on the ground of Bible usage fer- 

363 



MUST WINE — CRANBERRY 269 

merited wine is meant ; indeed Must is mentioned but once 
in the New Testament. 

Is Must used much as food: Not in the United States; 
most prefer to have the grape fresh from its receptacle inside 
the mouth ; it is more cleanly than when trod by the foot ; 
we doubt if Must is used much as a drink anywhere, save for 
religious purposes. 

Must is prevented fermenting by the use of sulphur and 
sulphur compounds ; the bisulphite of soda added to apple 
wine — cider — kept it, but its flavor was like that of sulphur 
springs, that is of rotten eggs ; hence the alcoholless apple 
wine was not a success save as a mode of administering 
sulphur as a medicine. 

Is Must difficult to make: No. 

Why then pay such high prices for it: We know not. 

Does not Must readily ferment: Yes, when exposed to air. 

Advantages : Can be drank as a liquid when it is hard for 
a solid to be swallowed ; prevents danger of appendicitis by 
being seedless ; is more convenient for transportation ; has all 
the good of grapes in an easier form. 

WINE 

Is fermented juice of the grape and is distinguished by 
the alcohol it contains. (See Alcohol.) 

CRANBERRY 

Crano or Moor Berries. The American Vaccinium 
macrocarpon and not the small cranberry ; Vaccinium occy- 
coccus is meant here. Grows from North Carolina to Minne- 
sota and northward. Belongs to the Huckleberry family, 
Vacciniaceae, which has twenty-seven genera and about three 
hundred and fifty species. Cranberries are not mentioned 



270 CRANBERRY 

by this name in Roman history, and as the European cran 
berry is small and so much inferior to the American, that 
large quantities of the latter are exported to England, it is 
probable that they came into general use as a sauce or pie 
or relish during the last three hundred years. The name 
indicates them as food for cranes. The high value, ten 
dollars per barrel, shows the estimate put on them. Are a 
relish food. 

Good: Moderately, as a relish. 

Bad: Enough not to use in cases of chronic disease. 

Condition of feeders: Festive occasions, especially on 
Thanksgiving or Christmas. They should be well and in 
condition to feast on the menus of these days. 

Morphology: When ripe it is a red berry, round or round- 
ish, half to five-eighths inch in diameter ; it has some resist- 
ances the touch but collapses under pressure, like any globe 
with thin walls; its tissues are loose; its substance cells are 
different from almost any other fruit. Re-entrant angles 
unique. 

Chemistry: United States Government report, average of 
two samples, as purchased: water 88, protein .5, fat .7, carbo- 
hydrates 1 0.1, ash .2, heat units 225. There must be a 
peculiar acid, which gives the taste, and it is not the pectic, 
which must be largely present, as all cooks know how well 
cranberry jellies. Contains citric acid and used for the man- 
ufacture of that acid (lour, de Pharmacie, 4 ser., v. 18). 

Physiology: Agreeable and appetizing and digests readily, 
acts somewhat like lemon (citric acid), and appears to meet 
a physiological want of the digestive organs. 

Destructive of tissues: Not to a great extent. 

Sole food: We know not for men; cranes probably can 
live on them a whole season ; it is quite certain that man 
cannot. 



CRANBERRY 2*]\ 

Multiple food: Always as a relish. In winter, skating and 
hungry, frozen cranberries are found very grateful and 
satisfying for a short time. They are usually made into 
sauce, jelly, pies, and a good deal of sugar is used with them, 
so that the eaters taste the sweet acid more than the sour. 
Sugar as an acid unites with lime to form the saccharate of 
lime ; we have known the latter to be so strong as to take 
the skin off the tongue. When the Revere House, Boston, 
was built many years ago, hogsheads of molasses were put 
into the mortar, which made the brick work a model one. 

Produce disease: No doubt if used in too large a propor- 
tion and solely. 

Cures: As a relish against scurvy. 

Head and heart: Not directly but indirectly in assisting 
digestion. 

Bone, eye, teeth, nails, hair: Not much nourishment for 
these in two-tenths of one per cent, of ash. 

Intestines: In small quantities they benefit the intestines 
by their peculiar acid to aid the liver and otherwise as an 
anti-scorbutic. 

How often used: Practically in the fall and winter 
months. 

Heat units: 22$ is a small number, and if one were after 
heat they would select some other kind of food. 

Force: Not much beyond the stimulus of the fine acid 
relish. 

Climate: Temperate. 

Natural: Custom does not interfere with cranberries, 
save in the application of heat and sweets in cooking. 

Aesthetic: Yes for its taste, but probably adopted by the 
fashionable world because of its lovely red color. 

Religion: No special significance. 

Builder of tissues: No. 



272 CRANBERRY — FRESH CUCUMBER 

Fermentation: Not when used as a relish and properly 
prepared ; the carbohydrates are in such small proportion 
that they cannot make much fermentation unless abused. 

Parasites: (1) cranberry leaf roller, Anchylopera vac- 
ciniana, whose larvae, called cranberry vine worms, are 
destructive; (2) cranberry moth, a leaf crumpler, Acrobasis 
vaccinii; (3) cranberry wevil, Anthonomus suturalis, de- 
stroys the buds. Note. — Cranberry culture is a most impor- 
tant industry on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Schools are 
closed in the season and most every one that can be spared 
engage in picking at high prices. 

FRESH CUCUMBER 

Cucumis sativa. A genus of the gourd family, eighty-six 
gen'era, about six hundred and thirty species ; goes with the 
pumpkin, squash, musk melon, etc. ; earliest mention made 
in Egypt, 1 16-125 B.C., by the most learned of all Romans, 
Varro. The Bible mentions it twice. Not found in Cogan. 
It makes a considerable portion of the food of many persons 
in warm climates and seasons. 

Spiritual food: No, but they made a great difference to 
the Jews' spiritual kingdom, Numbers 1 1 15. 

Good: Can hardly be called a good food, whose name in 
the Hebrew is derived from a word meaning hard to digest, 
"qishshu," and this is so even if the Egyptian cucumber is 
much better than the present conventional one. 

Bad: Certainly, if it spiritually caused deaths to the 
Jews aforesaid and has certainly caused many acute cases 
of colic, cholera morbus, collapse, diarrhoea and sometimes 
physically death. 

Condition of feeders: Must be adults, strong, well, hearty 
out-of-door workers, not eating them when tired, over- 



FRESH CUCUMBER 273 

worked nor out of meal times, hence children should not eat 
them at all. 

Morphology: The tissues are white fibrous, not very 
spongy, leathery, elastic, resisting the knife that cuts them 
up, specially the rind. The skin is tougth, prickly, tuberculate ; 
usually they are solid all the way through, even when ripe. 
They have no cells like water melon, oval, oboval, and filled 
with amoebic protoplasm ; they deserve their Hebrew name. 

Chemistry: United States Government reports, as pur- 
chased : refuse 15, water 81.6, protein .7, fat 2, carbohydrates 
2.1, ash .4, heat units 60; water and refuse make up 96.6 per 
cent; not much nourishment shown by this analysis. See 
also page 124. 

Physiology: There is a greenish juice in cucumbers, of a 
peculiar flavor, which makes the relish ; its substance digests 
slowly and occasions acidity and flatulence, especially in 
weak stomachs. The Egyptian cucumbers were usually one 
foot long and greener, smoother, softer, sweeter and more 
digestible than ours ; they were esteemed delicacies, hence the 
Jews had some foundation for their longing taste in the 
wilderness. The qualities are watery and cooling for sum- 
mer food ; the fresher the better. 

Disease: They rapidly deteriorate and wilt by keeping, 
lose their crispness and then impede digestion, and this gives 
the yeasts a chance to turn them into gases, alcohols and 
vinegars ; these in turn produce diarrhoea, etc. ; palatable and 
appetizing foods are not necessarily healthy. 

Sole food: Do not know. It is said that in Egypt they 
form a great part of the food of common people during the 
summer months, but our cucumbers are not so good as theirs. 
There is not enough nourishment in them to keep up active 
life for many days. 

Multiple food: Always in civilized life. 



274 FRESH CUCUMBER 

Cures: Never heard of any ; far oftener the other way. 
(See Skin.) 

Bone, hair, head, heart, nails, teeth: How can they be with 
only 4 per cent, ash and 96.6 per cent, water and waste. They 
are relishes and poor ones at that because of this poverty and 
because they ought to be eaten, if at all, fresh from the vine 
or kept on ice, save as pickles. 

Intestines: They are hard for same. 

How often used: Very rarely and then only by the well 
and hearty. 

Heat: low proportion. 

Force: Not a force producer, but a user of force to digest 
it all out of proportion to its usefulness. 

Climate: Warm climes like Egypt is where they flourish ; 
no so developed m temperate climates and thus not so good 
to eat. 

Natural: Decidedly, never knew them to be cooked, but 
always used raw with vinegar and salt. 

Aesthetic: Yes to the taste, smell and sight, but for this 
few would be eaten. Found on the table of fashion ("coo! 
as a cucumber" is a proverb) they are cool and moist cer- 
tainly, especially when iced. 

Builder of tissues: Very little. 

Effect on the skin: Cucumber juice is the basis of cucum- 
ber ointment for irritation of the skin, and works well. 

Fermentation: Decidedly liable. 

Parasites: (1) a black beetle, Crepidodera cucumeris, 
whose larvae devour the leaves; (2) the squash beetle. 

Intemperance: Probably there is more intemperance in 
eating cucumbers that comes under the notice of the medical 
profession than of any other vine fruit used as food. 
Eaters use them against their judgment and are willing to 
run the risks, but often do they regret the disturbance to 
the nervous apparatus when it is too late. 



CUCUMBER PICKLES 

They are generally the half-grown fruit of cucumber 
vines soaked in brine vinegar along with spices and some- 
times with sugar. Pickling preserves the cucumber in a 
more solid condition and are used as flavors and relishes. 

Chemistry: United States Government report: water 89, 
protein 5, fat .5, carbohydrates 5.4, heat units 130, ash 4.6. 

Good: From a chemical standpoint, on account of the ash, 
and this alone. 

Bad: Because of the hard, tough structure. 

Condition of feeders: They should be of the strongest 
constitutions. 

Physiology: They offer hard problems in physiology 
though the vinegar in small quantities probably acts on the 
liver like other acids. Their denser structure makes them 
even harder to digest than the fresh raw cucumbers, al- 
though the immature are less tough than the mature. 

Sole food: Probably not over one day. 

Multiple food: Always. 

Produce disease: Constipation, then diarrhoea, colic, 
flatus, and if pushed, dysentery. 

Cure by feeding: We know of one case of dyspepsia who 
had consulted physicians here and abroad and finally was 
cured by eating pickles on the advice of the late Gr. Gross. 
It seems to us that the cure was the natural result of the 
visits to Europe and the rest, and that it was synchronous 
with the use of the pickles. 

Bone, hair, nails, teeth: 4.6 of ash is good for these 
organs, but how can it be assimilated from tough pickles. 

Intestines: Bad for them unless in very small quantities. 

Heat: Too small to be sought for. Force: Little. 

Climate: Are used in hot and cold climates and are put 
up so as to be readily carried and kept for use where they 
are not grown. We have seen huge hogsheads of pickles 

275 



276 CUCUMBER PICKLES PEPPER, BLACK 

brought to this country from Holland and bottled to go all 
over the world from New York. 

Aesthetic and fashionable : They certainly are in good 
form for society use, but they are eaten largely by the 
general consumer. 

Builder of tissue: No. 

Pickles from ripe cucumbers: They are tenderer. 

Fermentation: Pickles may be said to be in the stage of 
vinegar fermentation as they are soaked in vinegar; if so, 
their next stage must be one of decay. Cider that has gone 
through with the alcohol and vinegar fermentation is disa- 
greeable to sight and almost so as to smell, as the decay is 
a charnel house. 

Intemperance: Are subject to the language as used for 
cucumber intemperance. 

Dr. Parr says of pickles: They are little more than vine- 
gar in its most inconvenient and indigestible form, also that 
no diet is particularly inconvenient to the robust; (we add) 
unless they make it a sole food as we have seen. 

Unripe melons, unripe walnuts, sliced beet root, etc., are 
also used to make pickles with vinegar and are classed with 
cucumber pickles. 

PEPPER, BLACK 

Piper nigrum. One form of condiment ; mentioned by 
Horace and Celsus before the Christian era; not men- 
tioned in the Bible; came from India originally, but now 
from Java, Sumatra, Malabar; belongs to the Piperacese 
that has two tribes, eleven genera and one thousand species. 
Universally used. 

Good: Yes ; it is allowed in chronic diseases. 

Bad: If used carelessly, like an edged tool. 

Condition of feeders: Both well and sick. 



PEPPER, BLACK 277 

Morphology: The dried berries are like a small pea, out- 
side blackish and wrinkled, inside whitish. Specimen from 
hotel table : oil globules, reddish amber like plates, masses 
of some cooked cereal blackened by iodine. Starch grains 
in masses looking whitish like manna or gum tragacanth; 
soaked in water both masses broke up into very numerous 
small spore-like bodies 375 x and less than half the size of 
red blood corpuscles (man) ; some were saltatory and auto- 
mobile like oil ; the one-sixteenth, one-fiftieth, and one- 
seventy-fifth inch objectives showed they were not oil but 
some irregular, some regular hexagons — tetragons, some 
globar, some with inside focus, some with nucleus — off 
focus this disappeared. The sexagons had most marked 
outlines and nuclei, some were with raised margins like dried 
red blood corpuscles. Grains single, aggregated, massed, 
color nacreous, yellowish white; no automobility with high 
powers ; Lugol's solution stained these bodies ail dark 
purple ; probably these are the smallest of all starch grains ; 
remarkable. 

Chemistry: Pellitier found piperin ; a peculiar crystal, an 
acrid concrete oil or soft green resin, a balsamic volatile 
oil, a colored gum, an extractive like that in beans, bassorin, 
uric and malic acids, lignin and salts. The formula for 
piperin is N2 C70 H37 Oio; it is doubtful if it is the source 
of activity, which lies more probably in the resin and volatile 
oil ; the resin or concrete oil is of a deep green color, very 
acrid, and soluble in alcohol or ether; the volatile oil is 
limpid, colorless, but ages yellow, of a strong odor and less 
acrid than the pepper. (Wood and Bache.) No Govern- 
ment analysis. 

Physiology: A warm carminative stimulant, producing 
general arterial excitement, but also acting with greater 
proportional energy on the part applied. Parr credits the 



278 PEPPER, BLACK 

stimulus to the resin, not the oils. It is the safest spice to 
warm the stomach and enable it to perform its office more 
properly. . 

Disease: It has been known to kill in some instances in 
large doses ; excites congestion. 

Sole food: Never. 

Cures: Intermittent fever in drunkards, it is said ; in 
colic, has been applied like mustard; used from the time of 
Hippocrates to excite a languid stomach and correct 
flatulence. 

Head: Good only indirectly by helping digestion. 

Heart: Stimulates, but not a food. 

Eyes: Direct action is very painful and blinding. 

Heat: Pepper is so heating that it is regretted we have 
no analysis for its heat to see how its actual heat compares 
with the physiological. 

Force: That of the whip. 

Climate: Natural to the tropics ; pepper food better borne 
there than in the temperate climes. 

Natural: Yes. Fashionable: But not very aesthetic. 

Builder of tissue: No. 

Effect on skin and mucous membrane : Irritates and in- 
flame, if not blister. 

Fermentation: Too much volatile oil, which prevents. 

Parasites: Pepper moth, Amphidasis betularia, European, 
white speckled and streaked with black. 

Intemperance: Rarely, as the sense of taste intensely 
rebels against such a thing ; on the other hand, it is good for 
drunkards. 

Holbrook's Worcestershire Sauce: This sauce the senior 
writer has found good and recommends it as a valuable 
table sauce used in moderation ; the American substitutes 
have been found abominable. 



RED OR CAYENNE PEPPER 

Capsicum is of the Solanaceae or nightshade family ; the 
dried or gTeen pods are the part used ; native of the East 
and West Indies; species are numerous, cultivated in Eu- 
rope and this country. 

Physiology: Produces in the stomach a powerful sense of 
heat and general glow all over the body, but no narcotic 
effect ; is is useful in correcting the flatulent tendency of cer- 
tain vegetables and aiding their digestion ; hence the value 
to natives of the tropics, who live chiefly on vegetable food. 
In the East Indies it has been used from time immemorial. 
Pliny refers to it ; it is more powerful than black pepper. 

Chemistry: Bracomet found its active principles to be 
capsicin, which resembles an oil or soft resin, of a yellowish 
or reddish brown color. Its taste, though at first balsamic, 
soon produces an insupportably hot and pungent impression 
over the whole of the mouth ; heated it melts and at a higher 
temperature emits fumes, which even in very small quanti- 
ties produces coughing and sneezing. The other substances 
are an azotized substance, gum, pectic acid and pectin (prob- 
ably) and salts. It is sometimes adulterated by red lead. 

Good: In the tropics where vegetable food is largely 
eaten. 

Condition of feeders: Vegetarians need it most. 

Morphology: The tissues of the pod are not very tough. 

Disease: Applied to the skin produces congestion and 
redness and probably likewise in large doses in the stomach. 

Cures: Neuralgia ; useful to weak stomach and enfeebled 
digestion ; delirium tremens ; also valuable in some forms 
of hemorrhages. 

Head and heart: Stimulates the heart and helps the heart 
and head by arresting the gases from vegetable tropic food. 

Intestines: Good for them by preventing fermentation. 

279 



280 RED OR CAYENNE PEPPER TABASCO SAUCE 

How often used: In the tropics is is constantly used with 
other food. 

Heat: Capsicum is much hotter than black pepper. 

Force: According to chemists, capsicum should be the 
most powerful food producing force, because of its heat. 

Climate: The tropics, specially where there seems to be a 
greater tolerance of capsicum. 

Natural: Decidedly, as it is used uncooked. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: Its red looks well in the 
castor; it is not the red of the beet, the strawberry or cran- 
berry. 

Religion: No connection. 

Fermentation: Prevents same. 

Parasites: Do not know. It would be interesting to prove 
they were free from them on the ground of its acridity. 

Intemperance: We know of no cases. 



TAEASCO SAUCE 

It is a strong American Cayenne pepper sauce, very inter- 
esting under the microscope ; the field is found full of minute 
whitish automobile granules which are probably oil ; there 
are also large prominent dark red globules scattered through 
the field, some of which are encysted in the cells of the body 
substance, whose walls are clear like glass and render their 
contents visible. Some of the shapes inside were other than 
globar and were amoebic, like the fat found at times in the 
renal epithelia of fatty ills ; the spiral tissues were well 
dissected and the cells corresponding to aleurone cells in 
wheat were very small ; polarized light did not affect the 
oils, but did bring out here and there in masses of substance 
cells, the presence of large starch grains; the" specimen 
examined appeared to be prime and genuine. 



RASPBERRY 

Rubus idaeus; also Rubus stringosus, wild red; Rubus 
occidentalis, black raspberry or thimbleberry. Distinguished 
from the blackberry by having the collective thimble shaped 
mass of drupe separable from the dry hemispherical recep- 
tacle. Rubus idaeus mentioned by Pliny. Wood and Bache 
make no distinction between raspberries and blackberries. 
Parr says it is a native of Britain, with three varieties, red, 
white and smooth, and distinguishes them from blackber- 
ries, Rubus vulgaris, by the fainter taste and moderately 
agreeable flavor ; but most persons know there is a well-rec- 
ognized difference. Raspberries have a delicate flavor, ten- 
derness of tissue, cool the palate, quench thirst and promote 
secretions. Our experience has been that they are the best 
berries for the sick. 

Parasites: (i) borers, Caterpillar of Bembecia maculata; 
(2) the grub of a beetle, Oberea bimaculata; (3) slugs, the 
larvae of a saw fly, Selandria rubi. 

The wild raspberry is the best, having a flavor far 
exceeding the cultivated. 

Used: As a dessert or mixed with water, sugar and 
vinegar or syrup as drinks. 

Chemistry: United States Government reports: water 
85.8, protein 1, carbohydrates 12.6, ash .6, heat units 255. 

STRAWBERRY 

Fragaria vesca. We are told that technically it is neither 
a fruit nor berry, but a large, fleshy conical or hemispherical 
receptacle bearing on its surface the seeds which are really 
the fruit. Mentioned by Virgil and Pliny. 

Chemistry: United States Government reports: refuse 
10, water 81.8, protein .9, fat .6, carbohydrates 6.1, ash .6, 
heat units 155. We can find no inorganic analysis, but this 

281 



282 STRAWBERRY — ASPARAGUS 

confirms the impression that strawberries are a very poor 
food to supply tissue waste. 

Good: To give desire to the eye, to stimulate the palate 
when properly cultivated ; are a relish and condiment ; not 
much more. 

Bad: When sour as lemon juice, though they look red 
and large. 

Morphology: They have no tough texture and probably 
the Creator intended them as food from the seeds which 
project from their substances. 

Disease: In addition to the above, if eaten unripe their 
carbohydrates are liable to ferment and produce cholera 
morbus symptoms and urticaria in some when the fruit 
is ripe. When tuberculous blood has been brought to nor- 
mality by treatment they will quickly devolute said normality 
to abnormality. 

Parasites: (i) borer, Tyloderma fragaria; (2) moth, 
Anassia lineatella, affect the roots; (3) strawberry spider 
crab, Eurynonome aspera; (4) strawberry moths, Angerone 
crocataria; (5) Acronycta oblinita; (6) strawberry saw 
fly, Emphytus maculatus; (7) wevil, Anthronomus sig-' 
natus, punctures the blown stems to lay its eggs; (8) 
strawberry worm, the larvae of four and five. 

Where found in best condition: In Maine, town of 
Brewster, one Fourth of July morning years ago, the senior 
writer found an abundance of ripe delicious strawberries 
(wild natives) ; never before nor since has he. found any- 
better; cultivation increases size, but decreases quality. 

ASPARAGUS 

It is a case of unripe plant being edible when the 
mature is inedible. Has a fine flavor and is appetizing and 
greatly esteemed by many. Has been used for ages. The 



ASPARAGUS — RHUBARB 283 

word is Persian. Judged by its good looks, taste and smell 
asparagus is approved. But here is where society makes 
a mistake. Eat solely of it and see how little strength it 
gives, how its active principle, asparagin C2 H8 N2 O3, 
is eliminated in the urine, and if you can live on it more 
than four days, you will do more than healthy men who 
tried it. Asparagus does not remove albuminuria, and 
should be avoided in diseases of fatty degeneration. But 
its large amount of nitrogen makes it a desirable relish if 
it is well borne and digested. It is also an easy plant on 
which to study the changes from rawness in cooking. We 
think hot water a much better and safer diuretic than 
asparagus. Chemistry: See page 124. 

RHUBARB 

Known to Greeks and Romans. Name comes from the 
river Rha or Volga. Is a relish as a sauce or in pies. We 
do not know how long one could live on it solely, but 
probably not long. The chemistry is interesting and not 
wholly settled ; some claim a volatile oil, but this is not 
proved ; crystals of oxalate of lime are found in abundance 
as well as an acid identical with chrysophanic acid. The 
stem is a very interesting study morphologically ; sections 
are easily made ; cooked, the anatomical elements are shown 
beautifully. It is not used alone to our knowledge and 
rarely raw, but in combination ; its acid combines with 
sugar agreeably. Its softness and delicacy in the mouth 
and its acceptability to the palate and liver make it one 
of the most desirable relishes to the well and ailing, but 
not to the sick ; those desiring pies will find rhubarb next 
to mince in value. Rhubarb is an excellent relish and 
pleasant stimulant to bowel peristalsis. 



BANANA 

A tropical fruit of prolific fecundity, easy cultivation and 
quick growth. Commerce of late years has brought this 
fruit to the United States in such abundance that it may 
be called a people's food. In this the banana is like wheat. 
Has about 68 per cent, starch and said to be the sole food 
in South Pacific Islands, and yet cannibalism is found 
among such bananivorous. The banana comes in admirably 
as joint food, as with v/heat properly glucosed. Eaten 
generally raw; sometimes cooked. If we compare the 
bananivorous with the wheativorous we find the latter to 
excel. It is a question if the banana was as cheap in the 
United States as wheat, it could be substituted for the 
latter. We hear little of illness caused by it, but two 
Americans who visited the West Indies and lived largely 
on the same and oranges returned home sick, as evidenced 
by systemic symptoms and deranged blood morphology. 
On another like tour they took a large supply of Bovril 
and came home well. As a composite food for the well,, 
in the United States, the banana is to be highly esteemed. 

PINEAPPLE 

A tropic food long and extensively used as a relish. 
We do not know of its ever being used exclusively. The 
banana has the preference in the tropics from abundance 
and cheapness. In temperate climes the pineapple is too 
expensive for sole feeding. It is a large spike of flowers 
clustered on a short stiff stem with bracts and sharp pointed 
leaves, almost like thorns. In use, the outside of the colony 
of flowers and fruit is cut off, leaving inside a soft, juicy 
mass among large fibrous cells. Odor peculiar, penetrating 
and pleasant. Sometimes eaten as such, but often they are 
kept in layers with sugar sprinkled between. The osmotic 

284 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 285 

action results in the pouring forth of a very delicate and 
fragrant syrup that is a delight to the palate and refresh- 
ingly cool. Separated into a syrup, it is much in demand 
as a flavor to soda water from druggist's fountains. Pine- 
apple has been said to have a power of digesting food, and 
therefore more than a simple relish. It is also a medicine 
claimed to dissolve the membranes in diphtheria. A lady 
informs us that she knows of a desperate case thus cured. 
We have had no experience to vouch for or oppose such 
statement. 

SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

Musics 

Prelude: There are eight definitions of spiritual in the 
Standard Dictionary (i) As opposed to physical and meta- 
physical. (2) That highest principle of man's being which 
is distinguished from the animal soul. (3) The soul as acted 
on by the Holy Spirit. (4) Of or pertaining to sacred or 
religious things. (5) Of or pertaining to or directly pro- 
ceeding from God, as spiritual man, spiritual songs, etc. 
(6) Marked or characterized by the highest and finest quali- 
ties of the human mind, as a spiritual face, etc. (7) Of or 
pertaining to Spiritualism. (8) Swedenborgianism. 

Spiritual man: The Bible, an eminently spiritual book, 
mentions "food" fifty- four times ; spirit, spiritual, spiritually, 
occurs five hundred and eighty times. 

The spiritual man is the eternal man ; the physical man 
is seen and is temporal. Take the modern magazine way 
of illustrating the histories of men ; i.e., photographs of the 
same man, from infancy to old age; they are exceedingly 
instructive as showing the changes of the physical environ- 
ment of the spiritual man who sees, hears, thinks, tastes, 
smells, wills, minds, judges, understands, knows. The spirit- 



286 SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

ual man endures, while the physical body is transformed, 
metabolized, dying and new born all the time. 

What is man without his spirit ! Go to some insane 
asylum and see the inmates in apparent physical health, but 
mindless, and so pronounced by the law. 

The spiritual man when the physical man is dead is not 
a citizen, nor a husband, nor a father, nor owner of real 
estate; he is a spirit. Hence the close, intimate and vital 
relation of the spiritual, physical and psychical man. In 
terrestrial life, they are all inseparably connected, and when 
you come to final causes, as we can say that we have never 
seen electricity, but see and know what it does, so have we 
never seen man, only the temple he lives in and what he does. 

The word "spirit" is from the Latin spiritum, breath — 
Greek, nvevfia. Air is invisible, but as we well know man 
would not live very long without it. For these and other 
reasons we justify the food division of spiritual kingdom. 

Are musics food: We use the word musics after the 
Japanese, as we believe in the music of the ear, the eye, the 
touch, the taste, the smell, because music is harmonious 
motion of the air for the ear, and of light for the eye, and 
of vibrating motions of the nerves for the touch, the taste 
and the smell. Touch and taste music are still to be proved, 
save on the general principle that touch and taste are forms 
of motion, if not emotion. "Music, the science and art of the 
rhythmic combination of tones, vocal or instrumental, em- 
bracing melody and harmony for the experience of anything 
possibly by those means — but chiefly anything emo- 
tional, one of the fine art or arts of beauty and 
expression." Standard Dictionary. Music is Schopen- 
hauer's "quintessence of life and events, without any 
likeness to any of them ; also music embodies the 
general figures and dynamic element of occurrences," 
and is considered to carry our feelings with them. 



Spiritual and mental kingdom foods 287 

If we had five meals a day, Schopenhauer's quintessence 
of life and events would be very realistic in our eating, while 
the dynamic occurrences of life would not be very dynamic 
if we had nothing to eat. The feelings of hunger are the 
earliest and the last in man to be realized ; so as music comes 
to supply a spiritual hunger it is dietetic on such grounds, 
but we consider that its harmonious motions are the chief 
points. Music has long been considered an article of spiritual 
food. We quote these items from Cogan, 1585. "But for a 
mind wearied with study and for one that is melancholicke 
... as Aristotle witnesseth, there is nothing more com- 
fortable or that more raiseth the spirits than musicke, accord- 
ing to that saying of Hessus, 'For nothing so exhilarates 
human minds with so great sweetness as the noble work of a 
melodious voice.' Aristotle declares that music is to be 
learned not only for solace and recreation, but also because 
it moveth men to virtue and good manners and prevaileth 
greatly to wisdom, quietness of mind and contemplation. 
But what kind of musicke every student should use, I refer 
that to their own inclinations. . . . The harp of all instru- 
ments is the most ancient and hath been in greatest prize and 
estimate. Orpheus with his harp delighted and fed the spirits 
or souls of Lions and Tigers and made them to follow him and 
with his sweet harmony drew stones and woods after him, 
that is to say, moved and qualified the gross hearts and rude 
minds of men. . . . Laborers, as the galley men, ploughmen, 
carters, carriers, ease the tediousness of labor and journey in 
singing and whistling, yea brute beasts are delighted with 
songs and noise, as mules with bells, and horses with trum- 
pets and shawms are of fiercer stomach to their appointed 
ministry. So that melody is refreshment and food to the 
wearied mind and drive away melancholie." Themistocles 
when he was denied the lyre at a feast was unfitted for study. 
Spiritual songs are spiritual food ; when sung with the spirit 



288 SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

and the tinder standing, they feed the hungry souls of the 
worshipers better than the phonated words of the preacher 
and teacher. Music deserves a higher place in spiritual 
dietetics, in so much as the metaphysical soul and spirit excel 
the physical material body, wonderful though it is. 

Are musics good: Yes, when properly used. Not many 
years ago a gentleman of one hundred years of age sung 
a bass solo, conducted an orchestra and accompanied on the 
piano a solo singer, at a concert given by his great-grand- 
daughter. And not many years have passed since there was 
a centenarian conducting a church choir in Maine ! 

The music of the eye is fully if not more good than that 
of the ear; this music harmony of the almost immeasurably 
minute vibrations of light is the foundation of the spiritual 
food we feed on whenever we gaze at majestic mountains, 
lovjely landscapes, the foliage of flowers, grass and great 
varieties of vegetable life covering the earth in late spring 
or early summer, rainbows, gorgeous sunsets, polarized light, 
ladies dressed in colors that harmonize with themselves and 
their surroundings, and the colors of real paintings. Archi- 
tecture brings forth "frozen music" in cathedrals and perfect 
public buildings. Indeed the milliners, dressmakers, jewel- 
lers, carriage makers, all vie in having eye music that is good. 
The music of the senses of taste, smell and touch go to form 
the delights of our lives when properly used not as an end, 
but as a means to the end of good living. 

Bad: There is a good deal of bad music in the world. 
Some of it crazes and is the farthest from aesthetic, because 
it is unbalanced, out of tune, harsh, grating or wrongly 
played. Such music is very much like poorly selected, 
cooked and served food. The musical soul food in our 
churches is not always good. Complexity of church music 
is not in the question, but it is the rendering of simple music 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 289 

properly composed or cooked in conformity to the best of the 
resources at hand. Choirs are not drilled, as volunteers they 
will not come to rehearsals. The organ will be played, 
throttle valve pulled out, full and soft music will be rendered 
forte, or rather there will be no attention paid to the com- 
poser's marks of expression, and so it goes helter-skelter. 
Musicians are disgusted and stay away from church. For- 
tunate is it that the phonetic food furnished by the minister 
is generally better served, mainly because it is a monologue 
and easier to get at, but chiefly because church customs will 
not tolerate such errors in syntax and prosody as they do 
tolerate in music. 

Eye music of dietetics is not so bad as it might be or as 
the music of the taste and smell. How many are there who 
have such a cup of coffee as is served at a few of the best 
hotels which has the bouquet, fragrance of the oil of coffee 
and a taste, that is music to the palate ? And such is possible 
in private families. How many families boil potatoes prop- 
erly, yet such cooking should be done always resulting in 
food that is music to the taste, digests easily and conse- 
quently nourishes better ! Poor spiritual kingdom food is as 
bad as poor animal or vegetable kingdom food, and it all 
depends on care, other things being equal. 

Condition of music feeders. Music food tastes best to the 
hungry, even when they are not aware of being hungry at 
all. In such cases it goes straight to the soul with quick and 
gentle power, and the memory of it will last for years. 
Church music heard in Vienna in 1862 is even yet a memory 
with the senior writer. Music food is suitable for all 
conditions of life, even the very sick, but it must be properly 
selected. It is to be hoped that music for the sick can be 
made more available than it now is. The sweetest vocal 
music comes from boys and children. It is the fashion now 



29O SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

to have music at the dinner hours of the best hotel's; it 
imparts appetite to those who need it, indeed all musics are in 
place and in good form at a first-class banquet. 

Musics and anatomy: Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is 
an adaptation of a spiritual matter to our subject. The word 
anatomy for ages has meant the dissection of the human 
body. Confined to this definition, the word is out of place 
in the spiritual kingdom, but the latest and best definition 
is, that it is a branch of morphology, that treats of the struc- 
ture of organisms, human body especially. Morphology is 
a branch of biology or the science of organic forms. One 
definition of forms is the appearance or character in which 
a thing presents itself ; likeness, image. In our vernacular, 
how often we speak of a divided mind, a concentrated will. 
If we come back to the original meaning of spirit as of 
things invisible like air, heat, electricity, we find that science 
has made divisions in them. Again it is certain, in our 
present state of existence, that we should not have any idea 
of spiritual kingdom food, but for our five senses and our 
mental and intellectual qualities, that bring spiritual things 
to our cognizance. Will governs all our life and is infinitely 
superior to any other attribute we possess. Anatomy comes 
in to describe the forms of organs through which we see, 
hear, feel, touch, taste, and that which is includeed under 
cerebration or functions of the brain, consciousness, intelli- 
gence, judgment, memory, love, hate, etc. Since sight, touch, 
taste, hearing, feeling, cerebration, emotion, are all forms 
of motion, it follows that for us to perceive them we must 
have the most wonderful organs of precision, that anatomy 
tells us of. This needs no enlarging. 

Chemistry: There is much music in chemistry, that treats 
of the atoms of matter and their combinations. Atoms are 
infinitely small and in the most active motions within infi- 
nitely small spaces; so small as to be unappreciable to the 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 29 1 

senses, even in solid bodies like metals. These atoms com- 
bine in proportions that agree or symphonize, in incalculably 
minute motions, that form new bodies. The doctrine of 
election or selection is one of the great doctrines of chem- 
istry. So it is in music. Chords that are mathematically 
agreeing with each other form harmony which is mainly a 
question of the vibrations of air, that numerically agree. Now 
where do we find vibrations of matter (save heat perhaps) 
equal to those that form the spiritual music of the eye (light) 
or olfactory nerves in perfumes that are capable of infinitely 
divisible atoms (as proved in the odor of musk lasting for 
many years without any sensible dimunition in the bulk of 
the musk). As we speak of the music of the spheres (mean- 
ing the sublime magnificent motions of stars, suns, moons 
and planets) may we not include in them the motions of 
atoms which are thought to be infinitely minute spheres? 
In studying for years the very minute microspores or seeds 
of cryptogamic vegetations such as have been found in the 
blood of scrofula, they are seen to be automobile and to go 
where they will, among the red blood corpuscles and the 
white serum interspaces, even when filled with fibrin fila- 
ments like a web of cotton cloth. They are much different 
from the minute globules of fat found in cow's milk, that 
move indeed, but with vibratory motions of tremulous to and 
fro movements ; but the microspores change their places with 
apparent intelligence, which explains the cause of said mo- 
tion to be inherent in said microspores. Look at a crystal of 
the triple phosphates of lime, magnesia and soda under polar- 
ized light; see its rendition of the music of light in all its 
perfection, exceeding that of a $7500 diamond, as once 
demonstrated under the microscope, and one realizes that the 
atomic motions of crystallization that produce such symmet- 
rical gems must be due to a musical harmony of the chemical 



292 SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

atoms. Ordinary music is not so good in a chemically impure 
atmosphere as in a pure one. 

In the music of smell, the French chemists excel. But 
chemistry does not excel smell, for the refinements of or- 
ganic matters go far beyond the chemist's skill and the most 
successful combinations of perfume music are the result 
of trying different combinations. Nitrous oxide gas in 
the air will often change the voice to a shrill tone. The 
usual odors of a chemist's laboratory are far from being 
spiritual music, but discord rather, stirring up the soul to 
disquiet. Some chemical compounds stop all the musics as 
the anaesthetics. Some help to restore the powers of appreci- 
ation, as ammonia inhaled during fainting. Chemistry and 
music have been yoked together at the annual celebration of 
the Sheffield Scientific School, in chemical songs of peculiar 
technical expressions which voice in music the ease with 
which different elements were married in atmospheric har- 
monies. 

Physiology: Music of the ear serves to: dilate the capil- 
laries and equalize circulations, quiet, strengthen and in- 
crease the power of the heart's beat, promote the excretion of 
carbonic acid gas, rest tired nerve centers by tranquillizing 
the sympathetic nervous system, quicken the memory, pro- 
mote digestion, give courage and strength, open the spiritual 
faculties so that they will more readily understand the ideas 
promulgated by speech, calm in panics, persuade to better 
things, exalt into higher and more spiritual life, impart 
strength for conflicts with work and worry, help study, 
soothe anguish — mental and physical (a boy sang while his 
limb was being amputated and said he felt no pain), im- 
prove the general health, act as an athletic as at a musical 
festival, give expression to the highest, purest and holiest 
joys, enable to endure martyrdom, drown sorrows and griefs, 
and help the functions of the body to act in harmony and 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 293 

agreement of nerve forces, and thus feed the spiritual part 
of man so as to legitimately and truly enjoy life. 

Multiple spiritual food: Generally so as in churches. It 
is associated with poetry the most beautiful, with ideas the 
greatest in the world, with history the most graphic, with 
visions the most seraphic, with doctrines the most far reach- 
ing, with spiritualistics the most omnipotent, with idylls the 
most attractive, etc. 

Disease relations: Music may be good, but from environ- 
ments be disease causing. In 1862, the Marseillaise hymn, a 
fine piece of musical form and ensemble, was not allowed 
to be sung in France for fear of exciting riot, revolution and 
bloodshed. When Napoleon invaded Egypt the bands gave 
public concerts, but when they played a tune, the melody of 
which we now call "We Won't Go Home Till Morning," the 
populace was frantic and a furious mob was aroused. The 
music ceased. Then it was found that during the French 
invasion of Egypt, seven hundred years previous, the same 
tune was played and it had rankled in Egyptian souls for 
seventy decades. 

A poor quality of music is usually the cause of spiritually 
diseased effects. Of course it makes a difference in the stand- 
point of view or race. The Chinese music in California in 
1871 was most horrid to the senior writer; to the Chinese 
it was physiological no doubt and no more outre than white 
being a mourning color. A song of recent years ran thus : 
"Johnny Morgan played the organ, His father beat the drum, 
His sister played the tambourine, And his brother went turn, 
turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, All alone on the great trombone, 
The music was so sweet, They gave them all another cent, 
To go to another street." The moral is that a hand organ, 
bass drum, tambourine, and bass trombone made a combi- 
nation of disease causing music that resulted in its banish- 
ment, yet a financial success. 



294 SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

One thing noticed in Holland, in 1890, was that by statute 
all the street hand organs were kept in tune. There is no 
doubt that the public have a taste for diseased music. This 
is seen in churches where a hideous cornet leads the soprano 
part when there are plenty of soprano voices to carry it, 
and the cornet is useless save as a light played alto. Further, 
church music becomes disease producing when its splendid 
hymnology and music (much better than formerly) is spoilt 
by male voices taking the soprano part when the music is 
written for four parts and there are females and boys enough 
to carry said soprano. Solos, duets and trios are sung as 
choruses with the organ full blast. People sing out of tune, 
as the clergy tell everybody to participate, no matter 
whether in time, tune or on the wrong part, and the parts 
are not naturally balanced. A musical composition is put 
together with fixed rules as to time and arranged in four 
ranks of different character (bass, alto, tenor and air), to 
make a harmonious whole, else there will be confusion. The 
last thing there should be in public worship is confusion. 
It is disease causing, to spirituality. This catering to a de- 
praved public musical taste has been seen markedly on steam- 
boats, where the orchestra is made up of seven performers, 
i.e., double bass viol, bass trombone, cornet, first and second 
violin, clarionet and viola; the double bass and trombone 
made two on the bass; cornet, violin and clarionet most of 
the time playing the melody, thus drowning out the second 
violin and viola. Thus was murdered what would otherwise 
be classical music. 

The makers of phonographs and gramophones dispense 
disease music ; for mere audibility, they cater the harshest, 
crudest, raucous music which cuts you like filing a saw, and 
then call for admiration and money for such abominable 
coarse, fog-horn performances. Banjo music, which is so pop- 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 295 

ular, is merely the exaltation of the narrow and crude musical 
resources of slaves, poverty stricken in money and music, 
to the drawing room .of the rich and learned, who ought to 
know better than to have pizzicato and no middle part music 
all the time, when it might do well enough for a change. 

There is other disease causing music of the eye and ear : 
children's noises are more or less necessary ; they are the 
natural expressions of their growing life, yet the mother, 
especially, becomes tired from the constant irritation of the 
nerve centers during the day ; a helpful rule would be to 
insist that at certain hours, children must respect the rights 
of their parents and be quiet, even if only at the table. Table 
manners of young and old when uncouth disgust and irritate, 
this producing bad music to the eye and ear. The noise of 
cities, so much of which is necessary and so much of which 
is unnecessary, disturb the nerve centers and produce mis- 
chief. It is claimed that the noises which one has to bear in 
certain occupations and which one becomes accustomed to, 
do not injure the human body; this is wrong; such do injure, 
and there cannot be too much reform in the abatement of 
noises which are unnecessary, and an effort to find out 
whether the alleged necessary discomforts of the eye and 
ear might not some of them be remedied. It is well for both 
the young and the old to remember that silent moving, soft 
speaking people have a better chance for success in the world 
than their opposites. 

Cures: Dr. Rush relates how a man was restored to sanity 
by passing by a church when a hymn was being sung which 
was a favorite of his mother's, long since dead. David's harp 
music curing Saul is another instance. Another one is that 
of a farmer more than one hundred years ago in Maine, who 
when crossed in love took a halter to hang himself in a log 
cabin ; while on his way, a bird plainted her mournful 



296 SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

tune for a lost mate; being a composer, he took down, the 
notes and wrote the verse for a fugue tune. After this, he 
thought he would like to hear his choir sing it the next 
Sunday, and his suicide was indefinitely postponed. Typhoid 
fever has been greatly ameliorated by the use of a first-class 
music box. Music will relieve cramps, cure loss of memory, 
quiet heart palpitation, and put to sleep even in fatal diseases. 
Marsilius Ficinus says "I myself frequently try at home how 
much the sweetness of the lyre and song avail against the 
bitterness of black bile;" our word melancholy means the 
same. Dogiel of Kazan, Russia, experimented on the action 
of music on the heart, arteries, veins and capillaries, and 
showed with the sphygmograph that music increases circula- 
tion of the blood. It is a help in nervous prostration and in 
diseases of fatty degeneration that are caused by retarded and 
impeded circulation. It helps the lack of force, in diseases 
where there is a diminution of the excretions of carbonic 
acid gas and rests the muscles. Old age being a disease, 
Socrates used to play on musical instruments with the boys, 
thus using a good music cure. 

Head and nerves: Mind, conscience, will, intellect, reason, 
judgment, are spiritual qualities that may be comprehended 
under one word, "cerebration," or the functions of the brain. 
Feelings, such as love, hate, passion, envy, joy, etc., belong 
to the nerve ganglions of the heart (a muscular organ), 
of which we have used the term "cardiation" for the auto- 
matic independent nerve functions. When the brain is tired 
out, over-active, or in a panic, because the voluntary nerves 
have stolen force from the sympathetic nerves, good music 
will so rest and refresh the sympathetic nerves that they 
are at peace with the voluntary head nerves, which then 
recover their lost tone and the head is made new again. 
If there are headaches from congested ganglions, music so 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 297 

strengthens the heart and dilates the capillaries, veins and 
arteries, that the blood, as well as nerve congestion, is 
relieved, and the confusion of stasis is over. This we think 
is especially the case when New York schools on fire have 
been safely emptied of two thousand children by having 
them march to music, which certainly was a spiritual food. 

Memory is quickened by music. A child captured at 
about two and a half years of age by Indians, and kept thus 
for eighteen years, being brought in by the military who had 
corralled the capturing tribe, the parents recognized their 
daughter, but she did not recognize them until the mother 
sang the old familiar lullabies. We have already seen there 
are physical foods, or products of such foods, that cause 
metaphysical disease — as for example the gases from oat 
meal that caused acute headache, numbness, loss of memory 
and impairment of the cerebral faculties. Good music goes 
in to remedy these, by its direct action on the head nerve 
centers and indirectly in improving the digestion. Music in 
public worship prepares the head better to understand truths 
enunciated. Lecturers should precede and follow their dis- 
course by good music. Ear and eye musics are sometimes 
well combined by hearing music and gazing on beautiful 
pictures of art or nature. Cogan, 1585, taught that students 
should practice or hear music as enabling them to do better 
head work. 

Mountaineering is hard for the heart because of the rari- 
fied air pressure and the ascents ; in this light, the story of 
Napoleon's soldiers pulling cannon over the Alps in his 
Italian campaign has added significance ; the soldiers becom- 
ing exhausted, Napoleon ordered the bands to play, with the 
result of making history. Anciently, galley slaves were 
encouraged to sing, also carters, carriers, boatmen, negro 
slaves, over their hard work. The rhythm of the heart's 



298 SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 

movement in pulsation is very like that of musical compo- 
sitions whose tempo is 4/4, seventy beats of the metronome, 
to the minute. 

Eyes: Such music as furnished through the eyes, as 
previously noted, is ravishing and powerful. 

Alimentary canal: Music promotes digestion and aids 
assimilation, confers force and strengthens the circulation of 
blood in the bowels and stomach. 

Heat: Music increases the excretion of carbonic acid gas, 
showing greater combustion of air oxygen and thus warms. 
The holding of the breath in singing is a splendid way of 
warming the outer parts of the body, by throwing the blood 
to the peripheries. 

Force: Music is a dynamic, as abundantly proved by the 
foregoing Dogiel experiments and the Napoleon incident. 

Climate: Music is in all climes where man abides, and 
the music of light pervades the limitless spaces of creation 
with its most refined, subtle and incomprehensibly great 
number of vibrations. 

Natural: Customs have not impoverished music food, 
save as allowing much poor, weak, lame and imperfect music 
to be served to the spirits of the public, and this is no more 
than customs have done to physical food. Per contra, an 
impressive sight and sound of London, 1889, was the sing- 
ing of the blessing by the children of Guy's Hospital before 
they partook of their evening meal. Four brass instruments, 
one of which looked as large as the boy who blew it, accom- 
panied the singers. 

Aesthetic: Yes in the highest degree of sounds harmo- 
nious, which combine wonderfully with the aesthetics of the 
eye, palate, touch and taste. 

Religion: Some kind of music is found connected with all 
kinds of religion, save the Friends Society with exceptions. 



SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL KINGDOM FOODS 299 

It is an art of great antiquity as a medium of religious 
worship. Vocal music was the oldest, and the Christian rule 
requires its use for edification. "The vocal music of the 
Imperial choristers at St. Petersburg incomparably surpasses 
in sweetness and effect that produced by the combined power 
of the most exquisite musical instruments." About 1800 B.C. 
vocal and instrument music was in use. Egypt was the place 
of the invention of musical instruments, synchronously with 
Palestine. The Psalms then used are standard words for 
sacred music to-day. These could be much more elaborated 
upon in antiphonies. 

Builder of tissues: Indirectly. 

The skin: Music causes the circulation of the blood to be 
strong in the outer parts of the body, hence the skin nutrition 
is better. The introduction of American methods of teaching 
music in the public schools in Japan has made a marked 
improvement in the countenances of the pupils of the forty 
thousand schools. 

Fermentation: Music has a good effect on the sympathetic 
nerves, partly paralyzed by the gases of fermentation, as 
found in cramps and abdominal colic. 

Parasites in music: Perhaps a better heading would be 
parasitic music, that is, impaired by a spiritual mould, as 
mouldy bread. The three prime requisites of music are 
rhythm, harmonious vibration and proper musical form. 
If any one or all of these are violated, you have parasitic 
music, and if this violation is persistently done at a public 
concert, look out for mouldy management. Such music is 
far from being a spiritual aliment ; it is more like food adul- 
terated and abased by parasites. 

Intemperance: Music can cloy, over-excite and tire the 
spirit. Teachers in musical conservatories are glad to get off 
into a silent wilderness, and the last thing they wish to hear 
is music, 



ALCOHOL 

Note. — Endeavor has been made, throughout this work, 
to limit repetition; accordingly, attention is directed to the 
connection, as to subject matter of this chapter, specially 
with Fermentation and Food in surgical affections. 

There is no such thing ever seen as absolutely pure 
vinic alcohol, conventionally so called, which is the ethylic 
alcohol or the hydrated oxide of ethyl, C2 H5 (OH). Ether 
is the oxide of ethyl, C2 H5 O. There are a large number 
of alcohols, as methylic, or" wood spirits, amylic, propylic, 
butylic, senanthic, propenyl or glycerine, etc. This is enough 
to show what a large subject alcohol is. It would take a 
volume to treat fully of alcohol chemically. 

Vinic alcohol here is meant that diluted liquid which is 
found in fermented sugars and starches, from which alcohol 
is obtained by distillation, i.e., the intoxicating principle of 
beers, wines and liquors. It is one product of»the action 
of saccharomycetes cerevisise or alcohol yeasts feeding on 
starches and sugars ; known also as aqua vitse or the water 
of life. Longfellow says "Paracelsus of old, wasted life 
in trying to discover its elixir (an imaginary cordial sup- 
posed to be capable of sustaining life indefinitely), which 
after all turned out' to be alcohol, and instead of being 
made immortal upon earth, he died drunk on the floor of 
a tavern." As the yearly liquor bill of the United States 
is over one billion two hundred millions of dollars (and 
is the largest of the nation) ; as this vast sum is spent in 
drink ; as most drinks are food ; as some claim' alcohol is 
food; as some disdain it as food and as some will drink it 
in place of real and true foods, we must give it place here as 
a spirituous food, and discuss it as we have done other foods. 
In order to distinctly understand our subject, let it be said 
here that it includes the following and more : Absolute 
alcohol pure, not used. Dilute alcohol, proof spirits, 54.5 

300 



ALCOHOL 30I 

per cent, water United States, 51 per cent water Great 
Britain. Rectified spirit, 91 per cent, pure United States, 
90 per cent, pure Great Britain. Ale, a beer with a good 
deal of body, 6.20 to 8.88 per cent, of alcohol. Beer, 
Munich, 3.9 per cent.; Vienna, 4.1 per cent.; bock, 4.69 
per cent.; lager (American), 3.85 per cent.; Holland, much 
less. Brandy, 48 to 56 per cent, alcohol. Gin, about the 
same as brandy. Rum, ditto. Cider, 5.21 to 9.87 per cent, 
of alcohol. Wines, 8.88 to 25.41 per cent. The longer 
kept, the less alcohol and better flavor (Christison). Must, 
already noted, is unfermented wine that only needs air 
and time to set the alcohol plants which are present in it 
a-growing. It is proposed to treat all these under one 
head, with the premise that the greater the per cent, of 
alcohol the greater the action. 

Organic or inorganic: Organic, as conventional alcohol 
is produced by organisms of the cryptogamic vegetable 
kingdom. It is also produced by chemical synthesis, but 
only in technical laboratories and for curiosity. Its elements, 
carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, are found in stones and 
other inorganic substances, but this does not make alcohol 
inorganic, any more than man is, because he has indispens- 
able mineral elements, nor any more than bone is inorganic, 
though it has mineral elements enough to keep its shape 
and size after all the organic elements are burned off. 

Animal kingdom: No, even if the triatomic alcohol 
glycerine is also an animal product. Alcohol is produced 
in the alimentary canal, but comes from the fermentation of 
organic substances taken in from the outside. 

Vegetable kingdom: Yes, as to repeat, it is produced 
by the action of the alcohol plant (saccharomyces cere- 
visise or torula cerevisise) upon starches and sugars. These 
plants and the alcohol produced are everywhere present 



302 ALCOHOL 

in nature. (This cannot be repeated too often.) French 
chemists have tested for alcohol in doors and out with 
iodoform and have never failed to find it. So full is the 
air with it, that all organic substances as fruits and prepara- 
tions, will, when unprotected, be covered with mould or 
the mycelial forms of yeast plants. Vinegar is made arti- 
ficially by exposing dilute alcohol on beech shavings in 
diaphragmatic barrels to the action of the air. This shows 
that the alcohol is acted on by aerial vinegar yeast th^t is 
always found in connection with the alcoholic yeast. Yeast 
cakes will soon change into vinegar yeast if kept moist 
and dark. The relation of vinegar to alcohol is so close 
as to be almost inseparable. This has not been well ex- 
plained, but we believe the vinegar plant is a descendant 
of the alcohol, and that the artificial production of vinegar, 
as above, is due as much to the vinegar plant in the air as 
to the alcohol in the water used. 

The neck of a champagne bottle at the cellars of the 
California Sonoma vineyard was broken off squarely just 
below the cork by the pressure of the carbonic acid gas and 
alcohol ; it was estimated by experts that pressure was 
equal to one hundred and twenty-five pounds to the square 
inch; this force was exerted primarily by the protoplasm 
of the alcohol yeast plant; why such protoplasm produces 
alcohol, glycerine and carbonic acid gas we cannot say, as 
under the microscope it appears like other protoplasms ; 
this work in nature is a necessity in order to care for waste 
of organic products, as fruits, vegetables, etc., which are 
provided with such a lavish profusion, that they are not 
all utilized and if left unfermented would make the world 
a vast charnel house; the alcohol thus produced is taken 
up by the foliage direct, without going into carbonic acid 
gas, as it is volatile in vapor and ready to endosmose into 
the leaves in its very dilute condition, as the winds and 



ALCOHOL 303 

tempests blow it everywhither. The alcohol and vinegar 
plants are in the order or family of those vegetations that 
mildew, mould, putrefy and decay, the corpses of animals ; 
the poisonous ptomaines are all of cryptogamic origin. 
Were it not that the heat of baking destroys the alcohol 
plants, those who eat leavened bread would probably perish. 
The bacilli of tuberculosis occur along with the alcohol 
plant. The fact that alcohol is a product of vegetable decay 
is not in favor of its being a food. Putridity and rottenness 
are bad in foods. 

Spiritual kingdom: No, save as given to those who are 
ready to perish. On the contrary the names, "aqua vitse" 
(water of life), ardent spirits, etc., seem to connect alcohol 
with the spiritual kingdom. The immense national yearly 
bill for "alcohol" proves something more than a physical 
relationship to man. Love, mind, soul and will must be 
influenced to make so much alcohol consumed and plants 
for producing alcoholic drinks of so great capital. But 
the great provocative for the astounding use of liquors is 
the will. 

Again the custom of treating to liquor indiscriminately 
is responsible for much drunkenness. Many a youth whose 
will is not to drink has been induced to change that will, 
and becoming drunken, he has been laughed at for making 
a fool of himself. The conquest of principle was really 
made over his spiritual kingdom of mind, intellect and 
will, before he was conquered in the physical kingdom and 
made the worse for liquor. Some argue that alcohol has 
helped their faculties and truly there are some alcoholic 
men of high rank. But to show that alcohol is not an 
intellectual necessity, we have only to mention Sir Isaac 
Newton, who drank nothing but water when he wrote his 
celebrated treatise on Optics, and John Locke, the mighty 
giant in intellect, who wrote the magnificent treatise On 



304 ALCOHOL / 

the Understanding, made water his common drink. Water 
drinkers have minds more clear and capable of greater 
efforts than those who use alcohol. 

The time was when a physician was said to be "good 
only when half drunk," and that his perceptions, judgment, 
tact, etc., were better when his intellect was partially alco- 
holized. But this is past, and such physicians are put 
beyond the pale of their profession. So our great railroads 
dismiss engineers and employees who drink spirituous 
liquors on the ground of impairing their spiritual faculties 
of observation, judgment and action. 

Another view as to the spirituality : many people depend 
on liquor as their spiritual refreshment, and saloons are 
fitted up with costly paintings and woods and stones, made 
up in architecture and furniture — as music to the eye. 
Yet these do not comply with the definition of food that 
we have used as a text, i.e., "food is any substance or form 
of motion, biologically received from without that enters 
into the tissues and fluids of the human body to become 
part and parcel of it and normally sustain life." Of course, 
the music to the eye in the magnificent fittings of the saloons 
is in a way a mental food, but no more than that. 

We do not confound spirituous with spiritual, but the 
evidence is unmistakable that alcohol does act powerfully 
in the domain of the spiritual kingdom, unduly exhilarating 
and exciting. If not, why should the word "intoxication," 
primarily meaning to poison, be specially applied to alcohol. 

Good: As a matter of history, there are a great many 
who regard alcohol as a food, specially in the spirituous 
and spiritual kingdoms. Certainly, it is a good medicine 
in some cases. Its action in fermenting decayed matter 
is a good thing in the economy of nature, as a sort of aerial 
undertaker to remove dead and dying vegetable substances ; 
also, when separated as rectified and dilute alcohol, it is 



ALCOHOL 305 

good to preserve organic substances, animals even, from 
complete decay. But as noted, if very much diluted and 
exposed to the air it changes to vinegar, which in turn will 
go on to still further decay. Alcohol is a solvent for plant 
principles, and the tinctures made from it are useful and 
good in their place. It is also good to burn for heat and 
cooking. Those who esteem it good use it in culinary art; 
some think that mince pies are valueless without alcohol. 
Thieves, robbers and murderers find alcohol good to blunt 
their finer sensibilities and enable them to practice cruelties, 
stealings and tortures on their fellow-beings. Devils find 
alcohol good to help along their wiles and compass the 
destruction of men, women and children. 

History shows a good use of the milder liquors. We 
are informed of a Jewish family that have used wine for 
several hundred years with never a drunkard. There 
are some that can take liquor and never be harmed. These 
are examples of temperance. Total abstinence is not tem- 
perance, but there are many who cannot play with liquors 
even lightly and not get hurt. All should have their choice 
unmolested. Some who believe alcohol is good can find 
an evidence in one individual who died at one hundred and 
one years and drank a glass of rum daily all his life. To 
offset this others have died at a like age who had drank 
no rum for seventy years. 

Bad: Alcohol is a bad food, because it is a poison; 
Alcohol has a special appropriation of the word intoxicate, 
i.e., to poison inwardly. It is a bad food chemically, as it 
is made up only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and has 
not elements enough to supply the tissues their waste in 
transformation or metabolism, but mainly builds fat when 
it should build muscles and nerves. It is bad because it 
stimulates and exhilarates as a spur or whip. Horses are 
not fed on whips, when they need hay and oats to give 



306 ALCOHOL 

them force, which when latent may be brought out if neces- 
sary by the whip. Alcohol may so confuse the sensibilities, 
that the drinker may feel he can do anything. It retards 
the circulation, especially the capillaries, making faces red 
because of the passive dilatation of the capillaries due to 
partial paralysis of the nerve centers. 

English officers captured in India and fed very simply 
on rice and water, without alcohol, on their release found 
themselves high in rank because their superior officers were 
dead from free living and the use of alcohol. Alexander 
Selkirk, for four years on the island of Juan Fernandez, 
drank nothing but water. He had been there but a short 
time when he increased in strength amazingly, being three 
times as strong as he had ever been before. But sailing for 
England, he drank beer and other fermented liquors. After 
this his strength gradually declined, and in one month he 
was no stronger than any other man. 

Alcohol is bad for digestion, because if strong it arrests 
the processes, and if weak it helps to add to the internal 
alcohol that is brewed whenever yeast fermentation attacks 
starches and sugars in the ingested foods. It helps the 
carbonic acid gases in their obstructive work, and if the 
alcohol turns into vinegar in the alimentary canal, its long- 
continued action causes consumption of the bowels, to name 
no more. Some reject this view of alcoholic fermentation 
in the alimentary canal ; but we cannot conceive the yeast 
plants being found in the digestive tract in the midst of 
fermenting starch and sugar, with the accompanying car- 
bonic acid gas, how alcohol cannot be present, without 
biology being reversed. If not there, the history of leavened 
bread making is denied, as alcohol has been collected from 
baking bread. It is a curious fact that people who are 
dyspeptic, and have never used liquors as a beverage, when 
put on food that does not ferment, miss the stimulus of 



ALCOHOL 307 

the alcohol, produced by the intra-fermentation, occurring 
with their dyspepsia, feel as lost and weak as topers who 
have been deprived of their alcohol and bitterly complain. 

Condition of feeders: This makes the greatest difference. 
For example, a man sick unto death w 7 ith chronic erysipelas, 
was given daily for three months a pint and a half of 
whiskey, with no solid food ; when cured he had no desire 
for liquor. Those who, in health, drink to raise their spirits 
acquire the taste or rather passion for it, which overcomes 
all considerations of prudence, wisdom and judgment. 
There are people who drink alcohol at their meals and have 
strength enough to control themselves from drunkenness. 
Such people may go on to the end of their days apparently 
in good condition; vet they have (some of them) insensibly 
shortened their lives by degenerating their tissues. Children 
should not drink alcohol, as it stunts their growth. Youths 
do not need it. Men and women are better without it. 

Morphology: The illustrations of the saccharomycetes 
or alcohol plants show glassy, oval, oboval and globar bodies, 
composed of an investing membrane enclosing clear proto- 
plasm, which, to repeat, when the plant is actively at work, 
make alcohol, carbonic acid gas, water and glycerine, etc., 
out of sugar and starch ; said bodies have a vacuole or 
vacuoles inside, sometimes large enough for space in which 
with the one-seventy-fifth inch objective we have seen spores 
with such automobile force, that on one occasion one spore 
was chasing another spore about the concave periphery of 
the vacuole as children drive hoops following one another. 
The appearance in photograph is of a plaque plate with 
mammelonated surfaces like the protoplasm of white blood 
corpuscles. The one-seventy-fifth inch objective brought 
these out more distinctly than any other lens and hence is one 
of its superiorities, giving more detail of structure. When 
the space between the cover and slide is watery and thin, 



308 ALCOHOL 

the yeast plants have been seen to revolve and show their 
forms to be exactly like eggs in solid geometry. They 
increase mostly by budding, and by cleavage less rarely. 
They have the power like algae of ranging themselves in 
linear directions and growing into what is called mycelial 
filaments, which also increase by budding and by fruitage 
scattering microspores — the history of which we have not 
made out, but which we believe form the alcohol yeast plants 
when sown on fertile soils. Along with the alcohol plants 
are the vinegar. So close is the relation, that it is the 
business of distillers and brewers to arrest the development 
of the vinegar yeast, so as not to lose their alcohol. The 
mycoderma aceti or vinegar plant is made up of single 
microspores, much like that of the fruitage of the alcohol 
aerial mycelial filaments. These vinegar microspores are 
smaller than the red blood 'corpuscles, or about one-six 
thousandth inch; they usually gather in masses (plaques), 
seemingly glued together as by a soft cement. Besides 
these, alcohol plants are accompanied by bacteria, as seen 
in the photograph with the one-fiftieth inch objective taken 
in 1876. At first sight, vinegar plants seem out of place 
here, but botanists have noted that they and the bacteria 
always go with the alcohol plants. Bacilli are the babies 
of cryptogamic vegetations. The mother of vinegar is one 
of the forms of the full development of vinegar yeast, and 
is a curious collection of protoplasmic jelly-like substance, 
found abundantly in hydrant water, kept in wood, as set 
wash tubs, barrels or on board ship, and in cider set to 
form into vinegar {See Water, hydrant and ship) ; the 
morphology of mother of vinegar shows linear demarcations 
running parallel to each other, in their jelly substance, 
which is filled with the microspores of the mycoderma aceti, 
and once in a while numbers of alcohol plants are found 
planted as plums in a pudding. There is much to be learned 



ALCOHOL 309 

about these processes. Every cook who makes leavened 
bread does what the distillers and brewers do, i.e., produces 
alcohol, and if she does not look out, vinegar. Put your 
ear in the quiet night to a pan of dough rising with yeast 
and you hear the carbonic acid gas bubbles rising and 
breaking with multiple sounds like a hive of bees in active 
life. The alcohol can be made manifest by distilling. The 
vinegar will show (if care is not taken) by the sourness 
and sogginess of the bread. If the process is allowed to go 
on unchecked the dough will be unfit for use. The mor- 
phology of alcohol is associated with the decay of vegetable 
kingdom tissues. 

Chemistry: The interest that chemists have taken in the 
yeast plants is far greater than that of the botanists. The 
many alcohols besides the one under consideration are 
differentiated by laws of combination so exact, elective and 
reliable, that chemistry has discovered said differentiations 
and given us a corresponding nomenclature. We know 
carbon as charcoal and diamond and hydrogen and oxygen 
as being united in water, and yet we find to go back to our 
former statement, that it is a protoplasm that converts these 
three elements into alcohol. 

Physiology: Those who have part in the more than 
billion dollar annual liquor bill of the United States, by 
their actions show that to them alcohol is one of the greatest 
promoters of health ; that it is good to warm a cold in winter 
and to cool the heat in summer; that no matter how well 
the functions of the body are going on, alcohol will make 
them better; that the feelings of hilarity, good cheer and 
conviviality that come from alcohol osmosing into the system, 
and specially into the blood, give a healthful stimulus and 
exhilaration to all the faculties ; that those who drink to 
excess and become drunk are exceptions to the rule and 
are men of small calibre, unable to hold what they drink 



3IO ALCOHOL 

without intoxication, making no account of the varying 
susceptibilities of different individuals to alcohol and other 
poisons ; that topers' red faces with their lividity and mud- 
diness are physiological ; that the pleasurable sensations 
experienced from alcohol prove that a jolly drunk once in 
a while causes one to forget cares and sorrows ; that table 
liquors are the drinks to take at dinners, etc., etc. Temperate 
people regarding the physiology of alcohol state that it 
cannot be a true food when it is one of the products of decay 
and death ; that sound fruits of the vegetable kingdom are 
wholesome for man, but when they are rotten with the 
decay from alcohol and vinegar yeast vegetations no one 
should touch them ; that our vernacular language, to repeat, 
in applying the word intoxication to alcohol, makes it a 
poison; that it is a whip food of three elements peculiarly 
combined, and not enough to build up tissues, that have 
fifteen or more elements ; that it has been found in plants, 
that oil in germination changes over to sugar, whence it is 
easy to change into alcohol in contact with the alcohol plants 
of decay and diastase (this is called mutual conversion, and 
it may be reversed and probably is ; we have found that 
the sugar of the cells of a ripe apple has been converted 
over to amyloid by the pressure of the barrel head making 
a facet that looked as if rotten, but the touch revealed a 
hardness foreign to rot, and the microscope revealed the 
starch or amyloid that turned blue with iodine ; this gives 
reason to say, that alcohol may be converted oyer into fat 
and long used may become a producer of fatty degenera- 
tion) ; that alcohol is a paralyzer of the vaso-motor nerves, 
and pushed makes acute locomotor ataxia, reeling, want of 
co-ordination of nerve centers, thickness of speech, tumbling 
anywhere into dirt and filth, in other words paralyzes the 
motor nerves ; that it also paralyzes the sensory nerves, 
making a special anaesthetic, causing vomiting; that when 



ALCOHOL 311 

further pushed, alcohol makes one dead drunk (i.e., com- 
plete anaesthesia, as if etherized), incapability of feeling 
motion or exercise of brain functions. Temperate people 
admit that abuse makes good foods bad, but there is none 
in the list that steals away the senses so deeply and deftly 
as alcohol. Slight injuries may result fatally in the intem- 
perate; that is, alcohol impairs the constitution and goes 
against longevity. The more articles the stomach has to 
digest, the worse it is for the digestion, especially when 
loaded with alcoholic drinks and food that will ferment. 

Disease relations of alcohol: The action of alcohol long 
continued is to produce a chronic congestion of the gastric 
walls, so that after death they appear as red as beefsteak, 
when the color should be white, like that of tripe, because of 
the paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves of the capillaries of 
the stomachic circulation. Those who drink, sometimes act 
as if they did not want to move for want of nerve force to 
control properly the muscular action. The one who gets 
easily angry or mad at nothing, as we say, shows a lack of 
nerve force, or call it unsoundness of mind. Drunkenness 
is acute insanity causing perversions of action that charac- 
terize maniacs and lunatics. Fifty per cent, alcohol has 
the power to dissect out the ganglionic multipolar nerve 
centers of the gray peripheral matter of the brain. Some 
years ago Dr. Harriman, of Boston, and the senior writer 
experimented with calves' brain soaked in alcohol ; beautiful 
morphological results followed. May it not be possible that 
alcohol drank as some people drink it, thus pathologically 
changes the living nerve centers. (See Alcohol and the 
head.) 

Alcohol helps to produce fatty degeneration (a replacing 
of other tissues or parts of tissues with some form of the 
many fat acids). Even the solid fats may degenerate into 
oils or oleic acid. Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are the 



312 ALCOHOL 

elements from which alcohol and fats are made. We have 
seen that fats in the plant are converted during germination 
into sugar and the sugar into fat by diastase. It seems 
then there is nothing to hinder alcohol being turned into 
fat and replacing other tissues. There are three special 
causes of fatty degeneration: (i) retarded or impeded 
blood flow and osmosis; (2) fats in excess; (3) carbohy- 
drates in fermentation. Starting with the alcohol made out- 
side, as in drinkers, it is helped by the fermentation in the 
alimentary canal of foods, so that, heavy drinkers have a 
double chance for the degeneration, aided by the vaso- 
motor nerve paralysis. But the greatest cause is the 
want of elements to make tissues that themselves have 
more than simply carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Then 
there are such things as making the epithelial cells of the 
lining membrane of the alimentary canal drunk, and thus 
not properly selecting material to organize into tissues, just 
as a drunken man would eat improper food. 

Alcohol also produces fibroid degeneration. The fascias 
and white connective fibrous tissues are all glue tissues and 
ferment into soluble forms of carbohydrates like sugar and 
starch, and the kinship of alcohol to carbohydrates makes 
it easy to have it turn into fibroid tissues in excess, thus 
forming fibroid tumors ; besides, the vaso-motor paralysis 
retards and impedes the circulation connected with assimila- 
tion, and thus the fibrous tissues may increase beyond bounds, 
and not only be too much developed but degenerate ; for we 
find fibroids varying in density from great hardness to that 
of water almost. The paralysis of the vaso-motor system 
of the capillaries caused by alcohol helps along the forma- 
tion of degraded or devoluted fibrous tissue. We do not 
insist that this will occur in all cases of alcoholism, because 
in some there will be a splendid constitution to ward of! 
such troubles for years. 



ALCOHOL 313 

The enlarged toper's nose is an example of fatty and 
fibroid degeneration. It is not said that all fibroids are 
caused by alcohol, but that some are. It is an interesting 
question how far latent alcoholism is causal of fibroids ; 
i.e., that alcohol brewed in the alimentary canal of dyspeptics 
bloated with carbonic acid gas. Cases of fibroid disease have 
been cured by feeding foods in which there is no alcoholic 
fermentation. Women living on pies, cakes, white bread, 
ice cream, candy, confectionery, etc., all go into the business 
of alcohol making from the sour mash fermentations. This 
has been further proved : wheat flour has been raised into 
bread by yeasts from the bowel discharges. Take the muscles 
of porters alcoholic from habitual beer drinking: in 1889, 
at New York, a small temperate expressman took a Saratoga 
trunk on his shoulder, did no harm to surroundings, and 
walked ofr with it as a light load. At Kenilworth, England, 
the same season, three porters could hardly carry the same 
trunk upstairs, and jabbed the corners into the plastered 
walls! this trio had very red faces and rotund bodies; they 
breathed hard ; the New Yorker breathed easily. The con- 
dition of the English trio was due to the very flabby fragile 
muscles ; palpably alcohol is not a proper food for muscular 
tissues, but for fat. Fat weakens by coming in between the 
muscular fibrillar and also by taking their place. Athletes 
do not train on alcohol to make their tissues tough like a 
good textile fabric that stands wear and tear, while a rotten 
fabric gives out in light service. The normal fat acids, as 
palmitic, stearic and margaric, are solid like a candle. Oil 
or oleic acid is not regarded as normal under the skin; 
when oil is found on the slide in human blood (said oil does 
not come from the blood, as after a full meal sometimes, 
but from the fat beneath the skin) it is regarded as the 
first sign of fatty degeneration; when such has been 
removed, so that the oleic acid becomes palmitic, or margaric, 



3 H ALCOHOL 

or stearic, feeding on starches and sugar (alcohol food) 
will bring on a devolution to oleic acid again. In general 
terms, alcohol continuously employed is disease causing, 
because it stimulates and exhilarates with only three basic 
elements, and cannot commonly sustain normal life. Over- 
stimulation and over-exhilaration exhaust the vital forces, 
and hence the constitution is undermined and breaks down 
in the ordinary demands made upon it for the performance 
of the functions of life. 

Action of alcohol on human blood: Dr. Harriman, of 
Boston, took a tough drunkard and paid him to drink as 
much whiskey as he could continuously. He drank two 
and one-half pints at one sitting. Blood specimens were 
taken, dried on slides, and then photographed with one- 
sixteenth, one-fiftieth and one-seventy-fifth inch objectives 
(with sunlight, no heat protecting cell, wet plates, exactly 
as the micro-photographs of consumptive and comparative 
physiological specimens of blood were taken in the former 
series by the doctor and the senior writer). The action of 
the alcohol was to shrivel the red and white blood corpuscles 
in various ways. One of the most impressive features 
brought out, was the production of amoeboid character, 
thereby making the red corpuscles imitate closely the white, 
or in other words reversing the ordinary biological charac- 
ters of the said corpuscles and unfitting the red corpuscles 
for their normal work in the system. Indeed it is rare that 
the white corpuscles put forth such an arm as one red blood 
corpuscle showed. It is more like the action of a fresh- 
water amoeba with which most microscopists are familiar. 
Some of the corpuscles were bleached and as it were de- 
prived of one-half of their body space, showing a great 
contraction of the protoplasm contents and yet without a 
darker condensation of structure ; a like condition as to the 
red blood corpuscles was found by the junior writer in 



ALCOHOL 3T5 

1888 in the blood of a costly cow dying of milk fever. 
Cases of alcohol poisoning are energetically treated in our 
hospitals, with some at that dying; in private practice, we 
have seen young men in collapse, pulse forty, cold perspira- 
tion from head to feet, who needed active attention and of 
the most positive medical nature; such cases have always 
occurred when the opportunity for blood inspection did not 
present ; let us have more study on this line. The impression 
given a physician treating such cases is that man is hard 
to kill. Further action of alcohol and vinegar on the blood 
is noted in the experiments of killing twenty-five per cent. 
of hogs in eight weeks fed on sour whiskey mash ; all of 
one hundred and four cases autopsied had embolism and 
thrombosis, that is the fibrin of the blood was before death 
coagulated in filaments, skeins and masses of aggregations, 
swimming as clots or stuck like plugs in the vessels, the 
heart included. Evidence is very clear from the manage- 
ment of cases of disease of the action of the alcohol and 
vinegar in producing these fibrin clots in the blood. It 
should also be remembered that this thrombosis is liable 
to occur in alcohol intestinal brewing people as in dram 
drinkers. 

Alcohol and tuberculosis: In 1858-59 the senior writer 
travelled five thousand miles in the United States in five 
successive months, partly to find out the connection of 
alcoholism and tuberculosis. He talked with many physi- 
cians and inspected the records of deaths in many cities and 
cemeteries, but was unable to find any bond between them. 
Ten years later he came across the fact that experiments 
had been made as to the brother or cousin of alcohol, to 
wit: vinegar, and said experiments were so many and 
decisive that he considered he had found the missing link 
in tubercle production, and his mind having been so trained 
by work in the line of carbohydrate bodies, it was very easy 



3l6 ALCOHOL 

to accept the findings of these experiments : ten hundred 
and twenty-six swine were fed on distillery mash and about 
twenty-five per cent, of them were dead in eight weeks. 
One hundred and four of these were autopsied and tuber- 
culosis found. The physical appearance of the blood in 
tuberculosis obtained in said hogs and also in man ever 
since. The mycoderma aceti or vinegar plant appears in 
the blood of such cases. There would be no sour vinegar 
mash unless there had been alcohol mash before. So far 
as this goes, alcohol is causal of tuberculosis. As dough 
is raised with leaven, and too much yeast or too long ex- 
posure will cause said dough to sour into vinegar, it is easy 
for vinegar to be formed in the intestines from alcohol, 
especially when no pains are taken to arrest it. Tuberculosis 
is started by vinegar yeast in the intestines. If the epithelia 
of the mucous membrane are constitutionally strong they 
will not allow the invasion of the blood by the vinegar yeast, 
and thus we have tuberculosis intestinalis, or consumption 
of the bowels. But if the villi epithelia are not able to 
prevent the invasion of the blood by the mycoderma aceti, 
then tuberculosis may occur in any part of the body, but 
specially in the lungs. Generally in fermenting liquors 
with air bubbles, you will find the automobile spores of the 
vegetations swaying about said air bubbles. When the lung 
capillaries are not dilated by full inspirations they are con- 
tracted and hold said mycoderma aceti, when it will grow 
and interfere with the nutrition and produce the retrograde 
changes we call tuberculosis. The bacilli, being always 
present, are babies of said parasitic vinegar yeast. 

Note. — This Primer on Food has no space for polemics ; 
we wish only to add, in this connection, that certain Ameri- 
can medical contributions in the seventies and eighties were 
on the necessity of systemic treatment of tuberculosis (per- 



ALCOHOL 3 I 7 

haps notably the senior writer's publication in the trans- 
actions of the American Medical Association of 1880 of the 
histories of seventy cases of tuberculosis, one-third of which 
were termed permanent arrests of the disease), great 
emphasis being made on the use of the morphologies of 
blood, sputum and feces in diagnosis and management ; the 
promulgation of Koch's discovery of animalized bacilli as 
causes of tuberculosis fixed the medical world on one point 
of attack only, to wit : the killing of the bacilli by germi- 
cides ; how useless this has been we need not to go into ; 
it is a matter of congratulation that the pioneer American 
work of over thirty years ago has borne great fruit; the 
treatment to-day is systemic and men no longer cavil when 
it is claimed that we are able to combat this disease ; the 
awakening interest in blood work means the eventual use 
by all physicians of the morphology of the blood in pre- 
taberculosis, when it is easy to change the course of the 
patient back to permanent health, as this diagnosis is made 
ere there are broken-down lungs throwing off animalized 
bacilli (tubercular) of the mycoderma aceti. 

The mass of civilized mankind eats in excess starches 
and sugars that are alcohol and vinegar producers in decay 
and death, and it is no wonder that tuberculosis is called 
the "white plague." The death rate on a low estimate is 
twenty-five per cent, of all cases of disease. One great 
factor in tuberculosis of cattle is the alcohol and vinegary 
fermentation, especially in silo and stall feeding. A study 
of grass-fed cattle in Oxford County, Maine, showed the 
absence of the pre-tubercular state, as evidenced by there 
being no mycoderma aceti present in the blood, and also by 
the health of said cattle. Silos heat, burn, smell like sour 
molasses and show the presence of alcoholic and vinegar 
yeast. Also, silo fed cattle are kept in stalls and not 



3l8 ALCOHOL 

allowed healthy exercise, thus making them doubly liable 
to tuberculosis. Alcohol and tuberculosis both with vinegar 
are products of decaying organic matter, and are half-way 
houses to death of vegetables and animals. Alcohol and 
vinegar prevent the cure of tuberculosis. Alcohol exhil- 
arates and stimulates dying tuberculosis cases, hastening 
death, because there is little force of resistance left in the 
decaying system. Alcohol may rouse the imagination and 
excite the feelings and joys of the consumptive, but it is 
like the flickering blaze of an almost extinguished wick. 
Rock candy and whiskey are poor things to give consump- 
tives. They may taste good, feel good and be relished, but 
they are only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, both of them, 
and the better the alleged effects, the sooner are the forces 
of life used up. They both go to help the vinegary fer- 
mentations grow more luxuriantly. If any consumptives 
resist them, it shows a wonderful constitution. 

How long can alcohol be lived on as single food: The 
longest we have known was the case of a young man, son 
of a dead liquor dealer, who his mother said lived on 
beer and alcohol for a year and a half. It is probable he 
lived most of the time on beer, eating a few other things 
and drinking some milk, so this history does not wholly 
answer the question, but to us it is a marvellous example 
of the resisting power of nature when so poorly fed ; the 
man died of typhoid conditions, flabby tissues, vacant and 
weak mind. Another case was a man with typhoid fever 
who lived fourteen or fifteen days on wine and when he con- 
valesced found it distasteful to him. The use for several 
months, by a case of erysipelas, of whiskey has been noted. 
In 1815 the French frigate Medusa was wrecked on the 
coast of Africa. Of the survivors on a raft, those who lived 
on liquor fared worse and died sooner than those who 
starved without liquor. 



ALCOHOL 319 

Multiple food: Usually. It is taken in connection with 
foods of common reputation for good. Even in saloons, 
when drinks are taken the lunch counter is generally patron- 
ized. Sprees are times of special feeding on alcohol, lasting 
generally for a week to forty-two days, and as one spreer 
said, "such have to drink until nature rebels." 

Cures: Alcohol has a reputation of curing most diseases, 
especially with lay prescribers for their own ailments. Po- 
licemen have been brought to bay for drunkenness and plead 
that they took alcohol as medicine for malaria. So of people 
who take cold or fear they are going to take cold, their 
apprehensions are quickened according as they love liquor. 
Many take it as a medicine for grief; as a double-edged 
sword to sever sorrows and double joys, and to fight a cold 
or cool a fever. It is used as an antidote in snake bits ; and 
curiously in delirium tremens, peculiarly an alcoholism, the 
poor victims often see visions of serpents and other horrors 
of a crazed imagination. The impression in the medical 
profession is strongly gaining favor that alcohol is not a 
good medicine, on the ground that it is work to live in 
health and more work to live in disease ; a patient needs 
generally more food than a well person, and said food must 
be concentrated and known by experience to sustain life, 
and therefore must have elements enough to renew all 
tissues biologically. 

Head food: No, because it has only three elements. It 
makes fatty degeneration, which is specially bad on the brain, 
causing a softening and apoplexy, and it has no lecithin or 
other brain food. It confuses, warps, irritates, partially 
paralyzes, sometimes steals the brains and destroys the cere- 
bellar functions of co-ordination of muscular action, produc- 
ing acute locomotor ataxia, acute paresis, and acute insanity. 
It makes one cruel to himself and those he loves ; annihilates 
the judgment, so that there occur all sorts of excesses (even 



320 ALCOHOL 

murders), and all sorts of unethical deeds, even wallowing 
in the mire like a hog. Sterne, Journal of the American 
Medical Association, March 23, 1901, states that the changes 
in the ganglionic nerve cells of the cerebellum by acute alco- 
holism have been demonstrated. There was a diminution of 
the chromophile granules of the nerve cells of the outer part 
of the brain and the large multipolar cells of the spinal gray 
matter. The importance of these changes is vastly increased 
in the light of the theory that the ganglionic cells have 
amoeboid movements, producing contiguity of structure with- 
out continuity. Sterne concludes his paper: "It is not the 
man who occasionally becomes intoxicated who gets into 
trouble, but the man who drinks much and never gets drunk, 
or he who is nearly always drunk that becomes a candidate 
for disease . . . his are the nerve tissues that show slight 
vitality, his offspring of stunted intellectual mould show 
signs of mental degeneracy, making them easy victims of 
epilepsy, imbecility, and idiocy, and a right to a berth in the 
insane hospitals, etc." {See Alcohol and Disease.) 

Heart and muscles: Muscles have carbon, hydrogen, 
oxygen, nitrogen, and ash percentages, as follows : Chloride 
of potassium 14.8, phosphoric acid 36.6, sulphuric acid 2.9, 
potash 40.2, earths 5.6. Against this put alcohol with its 
carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and thus it lacks six impor- 
tant elements as muscle food. No wonder muscles turn into 
fat when alcohol is used. 

Alcohol under competent medical advice is a good medi- 
cine sometimes for diseases of the heart. Since placing such 
cases in proper position and in ten minutes' time the pulse 
has been reduced from one hundred and sixty to eighty 
beats per minute, position is thus far preferable to the use of 
alcohol acting as a spur or whip to the heart and muscles, as 
this very whip exhausts the vitality, and if food is not used 



ALCOHOL 321 

the retrograde reaction will very likely kill the patient when 
the alcohol stimulant is gone. Again this stimulant of 
alcohol to the heart will create a feeling of more strength 
and confidence than the vital forces can sustain, and there 
may be a sudden collapse and breaking down. 

We should not be doing full justice to our subject if we 
do not touch on the effects of spirituous liquors on the heart 
spiritually. Instances have been known where it was the 
duty of some to take human life legally, and to refuse to do 
it for "want of heart." It is related of a celebrated Italian 
singer in the fourteenth century, captured by robbers who 
intended to kill him ; he sang so well that they let him go. 
Here music transformed cruel murderous hearts into those 
of compassion. But alcohol acts the reverse of music on the 
heart ; had those murderers taken alcohol, we think that the 
said singer would have been killed, because alcohol stifles all 
feeling of compassion, pity or respect for the rights of others. 

Mucous membranes: Strike a man on the back of the neck 
and if he is not killed by the blow, he is liable to choke to 
death from the pouring out of tough, tenacious, gluey, proto- 
plasmic colloid from and by the mucous membranes partly 
paralyzed from the effect of the blow ; the same condition is 
found in the bladder (urinary) in diseases affecting the 
lower part of the spinal axis to the degree of paralysis ; also 
in mucous membranes of lungs, throat and enteron due to 
fermenting paralyzing food in chronic disease; but this 
condition is also seen acutely in alcoholism ; it is called spit- 
ting cotton; men recovering from a debauch may be seen 
literally pulling out of their mouths the stringy, gluey, pro- 
toplasmic colloid. 

Eyes: The eyes of drunkards betray them often. They 
are red with passive congestion of the whites, or may have 
a muddy look, corresponding well to a muddled brain. The 



322 ALCOHOL 

eyelids are often thickened, sodden, reddish. The eyes, taken 
as a whole, come next to bony structure, especially in the 
corneas and crystalline lenses, and is is easy to see how 
alcohol cannot be a good food for the eyes, because of its 
three sole elements. The eye is nourished more by osmosis 
than by any other function of nutrition. There are but few 
blood vessels in the cornea — the crystalline lenses, the 
aqueous humor, the sclerotic coat. The specific gravity of 
alcohol is much less than that of the blood, so there must be 
osmotic trouble, which explains the retardation of circula- 
tions in drunkards' eyes and lids, and perhaps the wonderful 
mental aberration in cases of delirium tremens. The eyes 
are commonly considered an expression of the condition of 
the soul. Compare the blear, smirking, leering, ogling, 
sinister, wild, glaring, fiery, or blunt eyes of the drunkard 
with those of a sober man — clear, bright, expressive, calm, 
mild, gracious, clean, wholesome. 

Again one test of ether or alcohol anaesthesia is the sensi- 
tiveness of the eye to the touch. The patient may appear to 
be anaesthetized by the loss of power shown when the arm is 
lifted up falling limp ana helpless, and yet if the eyes respond 
to the touch the anaesthesia is incomplete. Anaesthesia of the 
eyes shown by irresponsive touch and non-contracting iris 
to light are good signs of death. Again the eyes are instru- 
ments of precision of the sublimest and minutest accuracy. 
Alcohol, a decaying product, destroys their accuracy and 
makes them report to the. "ego" of the soul (the spirit of 
man), the terribly wrong evidence noted in the cases of 
delirium tremens. 

Bone, hair, teeth, nails: Alcohol is bad for them, because 
it has only three elements — carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. 
Bone has cartilage and blood vessels, 33.26 per cent., phos- 
phate of lime 52.26, fluoride of lime I, carbonate of lime 



ALCOHOL 323 

10.21, phosphate of magnesia 1.05, oxide of soda .92, chlo- 
ride of sodium 0.25. Oxides magnesia and iron 1.5, teeth 
food (Marchand). 

Teeth Dentine^ Enamel 

Phosphate of lime 66.72 89.82 and traces 

of fluoride 
of lime. 

Carbonate of lime 3.36 4.37 

Phosphates of magnesia. .. . 1.08 1.34 

Other salts 0.83 0.88 

Chondrin 27.61 3.39 

Fat 0.40 0.20 

Von Biha. 

Nails are a horny development, agreeing very closely with 
the epidermis ; they have a greater proportion of sulphur 
and lime than other tissues ; they have more phosphate of 
lime than the epidermis. It is evident that horny nails are 
more like bone than alcohol, with its carbon, hydrogen and 
oxygen. Protein, a substance of the nails, is composed of 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. Sulpha- 
mide is composed of nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur and 
oxygen. 

Hair: Chemical composition is not well understood, but it 
is chiefly a nitrogenous substance. It is considered a protein 
compound with sulphamide, oxide of iron, oxide manganese, 
silica, phosphate of magnesia, sulphate of alumina and lime. 
To recapitulate, alcohol is not a good food for hair, nails, 
bone, teeth. 

Alcohol and the intestines: The action of alcohol here 
should include the action of vinegar, which in such organs 
must be found whenever alcohol is taken into the alimentary 



324 ALCOHOL 

canal, unless osmosed away into the blood. The subject is 
divided into two parts : ( 1 ) action of alcohol drank as liquor ; 
(2) action of alcohol and vinegar formed or brewed in the 
alimentary canal from starches and sugars eaten as food ; as 
to importance this division outranks the first ; more people 
suffer from alcohol and vinegar brewed within them, than 
from intemperate alcoholism; it is needed that the latent 
influences of alcoholism should be laid bare, and hence we 
will consider this first. Ordinarily, there is not enough 
alcohol to intoxicate but enough to be missed when with- 
drawn, and it is this dilute alcohol that will change into 
vinegar faster than in the leavened dough or the whiskey 
mash, because the warm nooks, folds, crannies and turns in 
the intestines give place for the alcohol and vinegar yeast to 
nest in. This is specially so when digestion has been delayed 
by want of normal downward movement of the bowels. 
There are other alcohols (some twenty-four) which have a 
different yeast and vinegar. Some of these are found in 
the intestines, and sulphuretted and phosphoretted hydrogen 
are evolved from them. After long existence and persistence 
they likewise paralyze the intestines, so that fibrous tissues 
are laid down in excess, even like a string tied so as to stric- 
ture the intestines. We have spoken of the epithelia of the 
intestines being made drunk by alcohol and transmitting the 
vinegar yeast into the blood and producing disease of the 
lungs. As before noted, when the trouble does not go so 
far, one can see cases of consumption of the bowels mani- 
fested by chronic diarrhoea. See Alcohol and Tuberculosis. 
Action of alcohol on the intestines when drank: This is 
exosmosed out of the alimentary canal almost immediately, 
as shown by its flying to the head. It does not remain to 
form vinegar, but is eliminated by the skin, kidneys, bowels. 
The harm in this respect is not like that when alcohol is 
brewed in the bowels. When drank to excess, there may 



ALCOHOL 325 

be a chance to become vinegar and thus produce chronic 
diarrhoea, but we think it is not often that this is the case. 
Its force is felt more on the liver, as being directly absorbed 
into the portal circulation ; and also on the kidneys, that do 
their best to eliminate any liquid poison. But whatever part 
in the alimentary tract alcohol does touch, it tends to paralyze 
those parts, passively dilate the capillaries, and thus render 
them liable to fatty and fibroid degeneration. That this 
local action is severe is shown in the deaths of young people 
who have drank spirits. The process is called burning, but 
this is more in the feelings, because the reddened stomach 
and intestines are so from passive more than active con- 
gestion. 

Heat: The heat units of alcohol, as a food, are omitted 
principally because the chemists do not agree that alcohol 
is food. But a chemist connected with the Government has 
made some experiments by feeding a man in a closed cage 
or chamber on alcohol, and finds that alcohol does furnish 
heat. This announcement has probably attracted more atten- 
tion than all the utterances of our Government on this sub- 
ject, although the experiment of but one man on one man. 
Considering this experiment to be final, alcohol must have 
more qualifications than that of heat alone to be called a food. 
On this ground we might call the live wire of the trolley 
car, food; or coal, wood, shavings, coke, petroleum, grass, 
hay, or any organic substances as ether, -naphtha, benzine, 
that burn, food. 

Force: Opinions on this are divided. Some take the 
ground that alcohol confers force. Formerly our naval 
authorities used to issue a spirit ration with this idea, but 
it is not so now. Few athletes strive in prize battles or 
liquor as a force. Alcohol is a whip as proved, but we have 
seen enough to show that whips confer no force where there 
is none. True foods do confer such. The exhilarating and 



326 ALCOHOL 

stimulating effects of alcohol have been mistaken for force, 
because the feelings were made incapable of realizing the 
situation. As a spiritual force how poor a showing do the 
alcoholists make as compared with the non-alcoholists. 

Climate: Alcoholists find no place where alcohol is un- 
suited to the climate. But it is found that Arctic and 
Antarctic explorers get along much better alcoholless. So 
on the sea and so in the army on the march. 

Natural: Alcohol is the natural product of decay, caused 
by action of a yeast on organic matters. It is not naturally 
found in quantities, but has to be separated from dying 
grains by distillation, an artificial process. Water in vapor 
is condensed by cold in the air and is a magnificently 
sublime operation of nature. Alcohol is evaporated into the 
air, but never condensed by cold into rain. Compared with 
water, wheat and meat, alcohol is not a natural food at all. 

Customs and ethics: Civilized and uncivilized people from 
time immemorial have drank alcohol as food ; if not for 
the body, for the spirits in the estimation of the drinkers. 
On the other hand, the people who do not believe this, but 
regard alcohol as a poison, are very many, and if they would 
all unite together, would probably do away with much of the 
evils of alcoholism. But such is the hold of alcohol on the 
people who use it, that there is a constant warfare between 
the factions, and until more enlightenment comes this will 
continue. In the vinelands, whole people live from the 
products of the vine or from the beer business. 

Aesthetic and fashionable: If there were in alcohol no 
money nor aesthetics (love of the beautiful by the perverted 
judgment of the alcoholist) there would be but little of the 
present use of alcohol. There is an aesthetic enjoyment 
(low in quality, to be sure) to the drinkers of alcohol from 
its exhilarating and stimulating effect. This enjoyment may 
become so strong a love that it will supersede all else. No 



ALCOHOL 327 

fashionable banquet is considered in good form and complete 
alcoholless, though great changes have been wrought in the 
last few years as to this custom, and people may now attend 
such banquets and abstain without the annoyance which used 
to follow such abstinence. The fashion of treating, so com- 
mon in America, is wholly wrong, leading to extravagant 
expenditures and acute drunkenness. The fashion as to 
alcohol on board the Atlantic Ocean passenger steamers is 
a disgrace to the twentieth century. It is a fashion to make 
champagne much adulterated, using cider, and thus a profit 
of five hundred to one thousand per cent. This is, of course, 
in keeping with the fashion of adulterating true foods. Other 
lines of fashion might be noted. 

Alcohol and religion: The Bible has much to say as to the 
injurious effects of alcohol, but it is impossible to quote 
here even a part of its dicta. The Mohammedan does not 
use alcohol. 

Builders of tissue: Alcohol cannot build any tissues that 
depend for normality on sulphur, nitrogen, phosphorus, 
potassium, sodium and chlorides. The tissues that alcohol 
can build are fat and glue. 

Effect on the skin: People generally judge of health, 
disease, mind or character bv the skin of the face. If a man 
is drunken, or is a heavy drinker, it usually appears in red- 
ness of the facial blood vessels. There may also be seen 
somewhat enlarged blood vessels, with their numerous rami- 
fications, like rivers on a map ; there are muddiness, larda- 
ceousness and lividness. But perhaps the most prominent 
advertisement is the toper's nose. Sometimes it may be 
found in a moderate or total abstainer, but even then it is a 
question whether it is not due to the alcohol brewery in 
the alimentary canal of fermenting starches and sugars : 
the toper's nose may be expected from alcoholism for the 
following reasons : ( 1 ) because of vasomotor nerve paraly- 



328 ALCOHOL 

sis where the blood vessels terminate in the V of the nose, 
making the circulation to double back on itself and thus 
easy to impede and retard; (2) because alcohol is easy to 
convert into fat; (3) because alcohol alone cannot build 
up normal skin tissue; (4) because a fat-producing food, 
overfed, will degenerate the normal fat acids, palmitine, 
stearine, and margarine into oleic acid; (5) because the 
fibrous tissues of the skin may be fattily degenerated by 
alcohol. Again the blear, sodden, heavy eyelids of topers 
make another showing of alcoholic character readable at 
sight. Taking the view that skin diseases, save from con- 
tagions, wounds and injuries, have been classed as simply 
forms of passive inflammation or congestion, it is seen that 
alcohol, a paralyzer of the vasomotor nerves of the skin, 
is not a proper remedy in skin treatment, where causes are to 
be removed and nature fully assisted. There is no need of 
ttfe heat of alcohol in the skin which has heat, enough already 
because of the abnormally dilated capillaries. 

Fermentation: We have seen in the foregoing, that alco- 
hol is a product of decay, fermentation and retrograde 
changes in nature to deliver the world from the effects of 
accumulating dead matter, and that its results in man are 
also in the line to remove said man from the active normal 
life. 

Parasites: The mycoderma aceti, or vinegar yeast, which 
is always found in connection with and lives on alcohol, may 
be deemed a parasite of it and very destructive to the human 
race in tuberculosis. 

Intemperance: What is it? Especially, habitual and 
excessive indulgence in the use of alcoholic drinks. In- 
ebriety is habitual intoxication. Intoxication is to make 
drunk, as with spirituous liquors ; figuratively, to elate or 
excite to a degree of frenzy, as "his success has intoxicated 
him." Ebriety is drunkenness by alcohol. (Standard Die- 



ALCOHOL FERMENTATION 329 

tionary. ) We have intemperance of eating foods, of speech, 
of action, of passion, of miserliness, of money making, of 
religious enthusiasm or otherwise, but no intemperance is 
so much present in man as that of alcoholism; nor so costly 
in money, character, influence, and power as ebriety, and 
none monopolizes or takes the first place in the definitions 
of dictionary makers as alcoholism. Those who call alcohol 
a food will have to admit that it is the most poisonous of all 
foods in its action on the head, liver, kidneys, muscles, 
nerves, else it would not be classed as a toxin (poison) 
in the very name intoxication. The nerves of sense may 
repel it, but the nerves of conscience, will, judgment, are so 
deprived of their normal functions that alcoholic intemper- 
ance wrecks both body and soul. Prohibitory laws will not 
cure the evil, which will end only when men will live nor- 
mally. 

FERMENTATION 

Biologically, when food does not digest, it generally 
ferments with the common yeast and vinegar, and this may 
happen when the food is good and the eater overdone by 
work, worry or pleasure. This has been often referred. to 
herein; especially in the chapter on Alcohol, as well as 
those on Food in Chronic Disease, Acute Disease and in 
Surgical Affections; it is well, however, to briefly recapitu- 
late: 

The effect on the stomach and intestines is dilatation 
from the partially paralyzing gases ; the alcohol has also to 
do with this ; sometimes the distension is enormous ; this is 
bad, as the gastric and intestinal juices sufficient for a normal 
sized stomach and intestine become insufficient for those 
twice as large. Often this fermentation causes colic, which 
may be like writer's cramp, because of weakness. The para- 
lyzing effect of fermentative gases and alcohol interferes 



33° FERMENTATION 

with the functions of the epithelia, which become as it were 
drunken, their elective powers are deranged and thus matters 
enter the blood circulation which cause acute and organic 
disease. The law that herbivora have large and carnivora 
small calibered intestines has been made use of with astonish- 
ing effects in the treatment of those suffering from enlarged 
stomachs and intestines. (See Food in Surgical Affections.) 
In the cases of long-continued fermentation, the stomach and 
intestines are thickened, strictural sometimes because of this 
perverted metabolism under the aforementioned paralysis 
from gases and alcohols. Pathologists are at present some- 
what at sea in their description of such thickenings, as the 
line of demarcation between fibroid and malignant tissue is 
hard to make out. The alcohol and the vinegar yeast plants 
abound in such alimentary canals. This has already been 
considered under alcohol and tuberculosis ; it would appear 
that the lung lesions are caused by the fermentation largely 
obtaining in the small intestine, with the consequent absorp- 
tion of morbid matters, while when long continued in the 
large intestine, we get cases of consumption of the bowels 
or of fibroid or malignant thickening ; in the latter instance, 
there must be a causative, a great expenditure of nerve force 
from overwork, worry, anxiety, grief, shame, poverty, etc., 
to have the retrograde tissue metamorphosis pass the fibroid 
stage into the malignant or cancerous. 

The spinal axis and its derivatives suffer from said fer- 
mentation ; the thickening of the sheaths of the spinal nerves 
and the fatty degeneration of the cord itself may come from 
the same cause that thickens the intestinal walls ; add tertiary 
syphilis to this condition and there is more trouble. Again, 
patients under treatment for nerve degenerations and im- 
proving will be set back by eating a meal composite and 
complex that speedily ferments. 



FERMENTATION 33 1 

The fibroid degenerations found in abdominal tumors as 
well as cystic degenerations, are amenable to food treatment 
which embraces the stopping of the fermentative conditions 
and the best of nutrition instead afforded. The osseous 
system, it is reasonable to expect to be interfered with, by 
the same conditions. 

The blood suffers from said fermentation by an increase 
of its fibrin filaments, its red corpuscles becoming adhesive, 
and the introduction of foreign matters by the drunken 
epithelia of the villi and re-entrant glands of the small intes- 
tines. We know that stopping fermentation in the bowels 
has removed the said abnormalities in the blood of our 
patients. 

Said fermentation, specially in the stomach, affects the 
heart ; the gases from a distended stomach have, by osmosis, 
caused palpitation and in some cases death from paralysis, 
particularly about two or three a.m., when the greatest 
stomachic accumulation occurs, though the heart has the 
least work to do because of the recumbent position; other 
causes of these fatalities arise from this fermentation, to wit : 
the ropy, sticky condition of the blood before described 
causing greater work on the heart and further a lessening 
of nutrition from the partially paralyzed stomach and bowels. 
Also, the paralyzing influence of stomachic gases, if it 
does not kill, helps promote fatty degeneration of the heart, 
that includes arterio-sclerosis and cholesterine degeneration 
into a stony heart. 

The kidneys suffer from their specially complicated 
anatomy, so that the circulations are retarded and impeded 
and the result, a fatty or fibroid degeneration, so familiar in 
Bright's disease. 

The liver, a dense and compound organ, suffers from the 
loss of nerve force caused bv fermentation, 



33 2 CHANGES IN FOOD BY COOKING 

The head is a special sufferer ; colds in the head and 
catarrhs were found in sole easily fermenting food eating, 
the latter being often secretions of partially paralyzed oral, 
nasal and post-pharyngeal glands. Dry catarrh, pharyngitis 
sicca, is soonest cured by appropriate topical treatment, the 
stopping of fermentation and the giving of large quantities 
of hot water daily. 

The brain is intimately influenced by fermentation; the 
action of alcohol is treated under another head. Experiments 
with sole feeding of oat meal and coffee produced much 
fermentation and diarrhoea, with dizziness, vertigo, reeling, 
unsteady gait, in healthy men in eight days. 

Uterine and prostate gland fibroids have been relieved 
by systemic treatment, which prevented the subject of this 
chapter; it may be stated that nature when overworked, 
underfed and partly paralyzed, will lay down an excess of 
fatty or fibroid tissues, same being lower grade than the 
tissues they have usurped. 

CHANGES IN FOOD BY COOKING 

It is impossible to do justice to a subject of such vast- 
ness, newness and deepness in a food primer. One may 
apprehend but not comprehend it. And yet it is a vital sub- 
ject with which man must deal or die because there are not 
enough of edible raw foods to eat and the great majority are 
inedible. 

Cooking aims are: (a) to remove the objections of raw 
foods; (b) to change cereal starches to glucose; (c) to 
soften and break down connective tissues in plants and 
animals; (d) to expose interstitial food substances so that 
the juices of the alimentary tract can have easy access; (e) 
to make foods more soluble in the alimentary canal; (f) to 
save nerve force in assimilation — a child died from intestinal 



CHANGES IN FOOD BY COOKING 333 

impaction of raisins, suffering great agony, as all its nerve 
force was employed and exhausted in the attempt to digest; 
(g) to get the maximum of food force with the minimum 
expenditure of nerve force. Chemistry and pharmacy may 
be termed departments of cooking. The botanist has to cook 
in some of his branches of work. Are cooks drudges? If 
so, then dealing with the wonderful, past finding out, in- 
tensely refined and subtle, entirely beyond the reach of man 
to comprehend, results, is menial. Yet such operations in 
organic and inorganic chemistry are deemed of the highest 
character. Is it drudgery to prepare things whose structure, 
formation and analysis have baffled the greatest human 
abilities to solve? Drudgery when the character, abilities 
and success of a man depend on his food ? 

Tests of Good Cooking 

A. The copper reaction of grape sugar in cereals and other 
starch-containing foods, commonly called the Fehling's test. 
Cooking more or less changes the starch to sugar which 
reduces copper to its red oxide by test. Hence thus tested, 
properly cooked cereals, etc., should produce the beautiful 
scarlet red cupric oxide, thus showing that the starch has 
changed from insoluble colloid to a soluble crystalloid, and is 
capable of absorption in the alimentary canal. The degree 
of color in the test shows the amount of dextrosing, sucros- 
ing or glucosing. The test is generally used by physicians 
to detect diabetes mellitus with the same reagents, test tubes 
and accessories. These words apply to cooking by heat and 
cold. It would be well if our cooks used it. 

B. Polarized light under the microscope: Up to the 
present time, the writers have found this an admirable test 
of beauty. Raw starch polarizes light; potato starch gives 
a wondrous display that can only be fully appreciated by 
actual observation. Cook the potato thoroughly and the 



334 CHANGES IN FOOD BY COOKING 

polarization ceases. Raw beef is another magnificent speci- 
men under polarized light, and ordinarily cooked does not 
polarize. Here then is also a good test for cooking. Lately 
the senior writer has had beef cooked by steaming, and even 
when the meat was cooked dry from the accidental escape 
of steam, some of the fibers polarized blue. The beef tasted 
and digested well, so perhaps here is an exception. 

C. Morphology of good cooking: The subject is vast, 
new and almost unknown ; it is impossible to do justice to it 
here. There should be illustrations of raw and cooked foods 
and let them speak for themselves. We can only mention 
a few foods premising that the zoologist and botanist use 
heat to soften specimens, so that they can be made thin 
and transparent enough to see through them. To be sure 
with modern appliances of direct light, the opaque objects 
afe seen and photographed beautifully. But the ordinary 
observation of the microscopist is through the object. Per- 
haps there is no field of microscopy greater than that of the 
kitchen; it is hoped that learners will not neglect this mine 
of gastronomic knowledge. 

Potato, white; raw section: Shows a network of white 
connective fibrous tissue woven in reticulations, like a fish 
net without the knots; inside each reticulation, the starcli 
grains in various sizes lie thickly aggregated in nacreous 
masses. Cooked, all reticulations disappear; a collection of 
great sacs fill the field and are full of starch that is me- 
chanically broken down, has no pearly look, and is a confused 
homogeneous mass that does not polarize light; if the 
cooking is imperfect, some starch grains will be seen that 
polarize light ; the morphology has been completely changed 
by the inscrutable action of heat. 

Beans, Boston baked: Razv section shows a dense compact 
structure ; outside membrane, made up of prisms that fit close 
together side by side; substance is made up of reticulations 



CHANGES IN FOOD BY COOKING 335 

of connective tissue fibers, that are distinct like strings ; 
interspaces filled with starch grains, globar and polarizing 
light ; the whole fabric seems made to withstand unfavorable 
environments ; the bean certainly keeps well in this climate. 
Thoroughly cooked, the reticulations disappear, the field is 
filled with oval, ovoid, obtusely triangular sacs with a trans- 
parent glassy wall of cellulose, whose thickness, if the ampli- 
fication was to the size of an egg two inches long, would ap- 
pear as one- fourth inch — these sacs contain the starch com- 
minuted and mixed up in a homogeneous mass that does not 
polarize light ; if the cooking is incomplete, they will polarize 
according to the amount of cooking; the outer membranes 
when appearing in separate masses, show a collection of hex- 
agonal prisms with straight wall ; from above, they remind 
one of the prisms of the Giant's Causeway, Ireland; often 
the sacs are ruptured and the contents escaping. When one 
considers that the walls of cellulose are insoluble in the 
alimentary tract and that starch half cooked, if not digested 
will ferment, it is no wonder that the intestinal gases are 
abundantly formed and the results are unpleasant some- 
times. (See Fermentation.) The Lima or French bean is 
more digestible than the conventional Boston, as the ele- 
ments of its skin are like a double crossed T connecting at 
the ends of the cross bars, and hence their hold is more 
fragile than if they laid solidly together. 

Wheat: Difficult to describe without illustration ; its archi- 
tecture is complex, showing beautiful solid geometrical mani- 
festations ; has seven teguments, the whole grain being fitted 
to endure for many years if kept from heat and moisture ; 
its starch is quite globar and polarizes light. Cooked, the 
starch is distorted, wrinkled, has cleavages and loses its 
normal shape and power to polarize light ; often it is oblit- 
erated into amorphous masses. 

Note. — This chapter is but a syllabus-memorandum. 



AMYLOID AND PROTEIN GROUPS 

This chapter is a commentary on matter in Johnson's 
justly famous and esteemed how crops grow. 

The amyloid or cellulose group in plants are Cellulose, 
Starch, Inulin, Dextrin, Gum, Cane Sugar, Fruit Sugar, 
Grape Sugar, Liguin. 

Starch and Cellulose have identical chemical composition, 
C6 Hio O5 ; Inulin, liquid from artichoke, is the same. 
Dextrin, C12 H20 Oio, is a gum found in old potatoes and 
young wheat plants. Ferments and acids produce Dextrin 
from Starch and Cellulose. Nearly one pound of Dextrin 
has been obtained (Limprecht) from two hundred pounds 
of young horse flesh. 

One of the most remarkable facts in the history of amy- 
4oids is the facility with which its members undergo mutual 
conversion. The machinery of the vegetable organism has the 
power to transform most, if not all, of these bodies into 
every other one, and we find nearly all of them in every 
individual of the higher order of plants at some stage of 
their growth. 

In germination, seed starch, is converted into dextrin and 
glucose. Thus soluble, it osmoses into the embryo as food. 
Here again it is solidified as cellulose, starch or other organic 
principles, making the chief part of the materials for the 
seedling structure. At springtime, in cold climates, starch 
stored over winter in the new wood of many trees (maple 
especially) seems to be converted into sugar in the sap, that 
carried upwards to the buds, nourishes the young leaves and 
is then transformed into cellulose and starch again. 

The healthy sugar beet root juice, ten to fourteen per 
cent, saccharose, is destitute of starch. 

In animals, the amyloids change when used as food. Cel- 
lulose partly, starch, dextrin and gums are all converted into 

336 



AMYLOID AND PROTEIN GROUPS 337 

glucose. Fats, oils and wax are chiefly in seeds of hemp, 
flax, colza, cotton, bogberry, peanut, butternut, beach, hick- 
ory, almond and sun flower, etc., ten to seventy per cent, 
oil, also in cereal grains, oats and maize. The lower leaves 
of the oat plant at bloom contain ten per cent, of fat and wax, 
dry. These are not the plant essential volatile oils. 

In the animal body fat (in insects and man's ears and 
crystalline lenses) wax is formed or appropriated from the 
food and accumulates in considerable quantities. 

One of the most important questions of agricultural 
chemistry is to feed animals for the most rapid and most 
economical fattening. However greatly the various fats 
differ in external characters, they all are mixtures of three 
elementary fats, stearin, palmatin and olein, consisting of 
carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and making up tallow, olive 
oil and butter, and are ingredients of the food of man and 
domestic animals. 

Centesimal composition of the elementary fats 

Stearin 

Carbon j6.6 

Hydrogen 12.4 

Oxygen 10.0 

Phosphorized fats: The brain and spinal cord and the 
yolks of eggs contain them, 1.21 to 2.53 per cent. They 
have been found in the sugar pea as follows : carbon 66.85, 
hydrogen 9.52, oxygen 22.38, phosphorus 1.25. Are not 
then peas good brain food? 

Topler found phosphorus as follows in the oils : lupin 
0.29 per cent., pea 1.17, horse bean 0.72, vetch 0.50, winter 
lentil 0.39, horse chestnut 0.30, wheat 0.25, barley 0.28, oat 

44- 



Palmatin 


Olein 


75-9 


77A 


12.2 


11.8 


11.9 


10.8 



33& AMYLOID AND PROTEIN GROUPS 

Protagon (Leibrich, 1864) is the phosphorized principle 
of the oil of maize, brain, nerves, yolk of egg, etc. Per- 
centages of composition : carbon 67.2, hydrogen 1 1 .6, nitro- 
gen 2.7, phophorus 1.5, oxygen .17. Heated to boiling it 
yields glycerine, phosphoric acid, oleic acid, etc. 

Relation of fats to amyloids: The oil or fat of plants is 
in many cases a product of the transformation of amyloid, 
because the oily immature seeds contain starch that vanishes 
as they ripen. In the sugar cane the quantity of wax is 
said to be the largest when the sugar is least abundant, 
and vice versa. In germination, the seed oil is converted 
back again into starch, sugar, etc. 

The protein bodies or albuminoids are (1) albumin, or 
white of egg, (2) fibrin, or muscle, (3) casein, or milk 
curd. I. Albumin, of hen's egg, in the blood, the crys- 
talline lens and blood corpuscles, globulin and hsemoglo- 
bulin. Vegetable albumin is found in all plant juices and 
in all respects agrees with animal albumin. Found in cab- 
bage juice more than in potato juice. Water extracts 
albumin from flour of wheat, rye, oats and barley. (Nitrate 
of mercury test the best.) II. Fibrin from the clot of blood 
has many of the properties of albumin. Flesh fibrin is had 
by repeated squeezing and washing in water until the color- 
ing matters are removed. It is in fact the actual fibers of the 
muscle. Vegetable fibrin, gluten from wheat flour, is an 
admixture of several albuminoids, and contains also some 
starch and fat. It does not dissolve in water, and has no 
fibrous structure like animal fibrin, but forms when dry a 
tough horn-like mass. In composition it approaches animal 
fibrin. III. Casein, new cheese ; unlike egg albumin, it is 
not coagulated by heat, but by acids, rennet and boiling in 
salts of lime and magnesia. It has been detected in the 
brain. Vegetable casein, from seventeen to nineteen per cent. 
of pea and bean, closely resembles milk casein in all respects. 



AMYLOID AND PROTEIN GROUPS 339 

The Chinese make a vegetable cheese from peas, sold as 
Tao Foo. Casein is found in oats, potatoes, turnips and 
many plants. In cruder wheat gluten two other albuminoids 
are : ( I ) gliadin, or vegetable glue ; strongly resembles ani- 
mal glue; (2) mucidin resembles gliadin, but is less soluble 
in strong alcohol and is insoluble in water. The exact com- 
position of albuminoids is uncertain, as they are mixed with 
other matters from which it is very difficult to separate them 
wholly. They are altered and destroyed by our reagents, 
and our methods of analysis are scarcely delicate enough to 
indicate their difference with entire accuracy. 

Albuminoids are termed proteids because they take the 
first place in physiological importance. In animals, all food 
albuminoids dissolve in the gastric juices and enter the 
blood, to form albumin and fibrin. In the lacteals, they 
are converted into casein, and in the appropriate part of 
circulation they are formed into egg albumin. In the living 
plant life changes of place and character occur among pro- 
teids. Outside the body, fibrin exposed to moist summer 
heat for some days dissolves to a liquid which has the 
properties of albumin. Remove the albumin and adding 
acetic acid to the liquid, curds are formed readily like casein. 
Lehmann has shown that when albumin is dissolved in oxide 
of potassium and mixed with a little oily fat and milk sugar, 
the mixture coagulates as milk curdles. Some think casein 
is a compound of albumin and oxide of potassium. Album- 
inoids are adapted to animal nutrition, being essential ingre- 
dients of muscles and cartilages, nerves and brain. They 
likewise exist largely in the nutritive fluids of the animal 
as blood and milk. So far as we know the animal body has 
not the power to produce albumin, fibrin or casein ; it can 
only transform these bodies as presented to it from external 
sources (this is true in the main). The mammary glands 
secrete casein. Animals can live a limited time on them- 



34° AMYLOID AND PROTEIN GROUPS 

selves, a sort of cannibalization by which they grow poor, 
wasting their own tissues by the formation of the album- 
inoids, it must be, for body power. They are hence indis- 
pensable ingredients of food and have been aptly named by 
Liebig as the plastic elements of nutrition. 

It is, in all cases, the plant which originally contributes 
these substances and places them at the disposal of the 
animal. But animals are eaten by animals, and the animal 
albuminoids, etc., are easier to assimilate and confer more 
force than the plants. Vegetarians take the ground that 
all human food should be from the vegetable kingdom. It 
seems to us that it is best to derive food from all kingdoms 
of nature — vegetable, animal, mineral and spiritual ; the 
last because our chemists say that life (the spiritual kingdom 
food) resists, overcomes and modifies the affinities of oxygen 
and ensures the existence of a continuous and perpetual 
succession of living forms. Take life away and decay comes 
from the want of vital resistance to oxygen, physical con- 
ditions and cryptogamic vegetations. Physical and chemical 
amyloid changes are in one direction towards decomposition 
and simple compounds. To reverse this needs life or phyto- 
chemistry. In the laboratory, we reduce from the highest 
and more complex constitution to a simpler one. In the 
vegetable, all this is reversed and many more changes are 
done. (This shows what better chemists plants are than 
man.) 

The albuminoids are mostly capable of existing in the 
liquid or soluble state, and thus admit of distribution 
throughout the entire animal body, as blood, etc. They 
likewise readily assume the solid condition, thus becoming 
more permanent parts of the living organism, as well as 
capable of indefinite preservation, for food in the seeds and 
other edible parts of plants. Proteids contain sixteen per 
cent, of nitrogen. In germination, seedlings, like nascent 



FOOD IN ACUTE DISEASES 341 

man, depend on the parent for growth. The seed food 
undergoes three simultaneous functions: (i) solution, (2) 
transfer, (3) assimilation. The solution is easy with 
albumin, dextrin, casein, gum and sugar. It is otherwise 
with fats, oils, starch, gluten. The changes have been 
traced somewhat. Sachs found that ripe squash seeds have 
no starch, sugar nor dextrin, but were very rich in oil, 
fifty per cent., and protein forty per cent. But the oils 
disappear and at the same time starch and sometimes sugar 
is formed in germination. The starch that is so formed 
from the fat of oily seeds, or that which exists ready formed 
in the farinaceous seeds, is changed into dextrin and sugar. 
Fat is also formed most largely at bloom time of plant. It 
cannot be too much impressed on those who study fatty 
degeneration that fats and oils are transformed from the 
amyloids. Immature oily seeds contain starch. Ripe oily 
seeds contain no starch. But in germination, the oil of said 
seed is converted back again into starch and sugar, and just 
here is shown again that plants are better chemists than men 
who cannot do this — furthermore that life is the spiritual 
power added to the physical to make such a change. 

FOOD IN ACUTE DISEASES 

From what precedes, it cannot be denied that food is 
an exciting cause of disease. It is also a predisposing cause. 
However much physicians may differ as to other things, 
they are united as to these ideas ; the conventional question, 
when the profession is called to an acute disease, asked or 
unasked, is what has been the food? This query is also 
uppermost in the laity. Formerly the usage was to admin- 
ister an emetic to expel the malefactor as dogs chew grass 
for the same purpose : it is a short way to relief and will 



34 2 FOOD IN ACUTE DISEASES 

not be abandoned if man knows as much as dogs. Some- 
times the food is all right, while the patient has used up his 
forces pleasantly or unpleasantly and there is left an insuffi- 
ciency to digest them ; then nature will send . an alarm 
through the whole body, to rouse and expel said food. One 
of this kind occurred in a case of fractured patella that was 
convalescing and felt well enough to study; began such 
at ten a.m.; fed at one and again at six o'clock, working 
on technical studies in the meantime; all was delightful 
till 6.30 p.m., when a mighty colic came on that shook like 
an earthquake; thinking that food might be the cause, an 
emetic was given and both meals came up sweet and undi- 
gested; the injured leg was cold as if dead; the trouble was 
that the dynamis had been pleasantly used up in study. 
Never take away the force needed to digest normal food. 

" An example of food as predisposing is seen when people 
live so that their blood is ropy, adhesive, sticky, fibrin fila- 
ments unduly developed, has formless and crystalline mat- 
ters, so that the circulation is retarded and impeded ; let 
such be exposed to cold and they will be very liable to 
contract pneumonia. Rheumatism is another example, the 
morphology of the blood showing the pre-stage. 

Food cu^al: By abstinence and the patient cannibalizing 
himself; this is very good, but ten to fourteen days is a 
limit judged by well people who would not fast so long if 
they could help it. A typho-malarial case, foodless and 
medicineless for this time, was finally forced to eat beef 
essence and recovered so speedily that in ten days he returned 
home, some four hundred miles. In fasting it is well to give 
hot water enough to keep the blood liquid and promote 
downward peristalsis of guts, to give fresh air and baths and 
thus to clear out the alimentary canal of fermenting foul 
food, gases, etc. It is well to remember, that it takes more 
force to run the body in disease than in health, and that 



FOOD IN ACUTE DISEASES 343 

Natura naturans is all the time striving to cure ; the physician 
who conserves force in acute disease by putting his patient 
to bed, feeds simply and aids nature by whatever is necessary 
in the line of medication, gets results. This is also a very 
rich subject, but our limits will allow of but the following 
specific cases : Lately, a two year old was allowed to eat 
at the table, brown bread, vegetables and other things as 
the adults, and had cholera infantum seriously ; the mother 
applied to a physician, who asked the conventional question 

as to food eaten; after the reply, he asked: "Mrs. , 

would you not like to have your child cured without medi- 
cine, reserving it for future use?" On her acquiescence, 
the child was fed milk, the whites of eggs dropped in boiling 
water and Bovril ; the symptoms abated ; the child slept so 
long that the grandmother was worried, but was told to 
leave the patient alone; in two days she was well. 

A lady, aged fifty, mother of a large family, was sud- 
denly attacked by an acute inflammation of the left lung, 
and so viciously that in the acute onset the two attending 
physicians labored all night, fearing speedy dissolution ; the 
next day there was some abatement of symptoms of pain, 
dyspnoea, fever, which did not last, and the anxiety of the 
attendants as to closely impending death was not relieved 
till a dozen leeches were applied on the left chest, which 
filled with blood, dropped off and the patient allowed to 
bleed slowly into the bed. (Venesection is coming into 
favor again, we are glad to note, for it has its place in 
therapy.) Physical examination of the left chest showed 
dulness over the lower two-thirds ; there was no bulging 
of intercostal spaces ; but auscultation developed most 
curious rales, as if the greater part of the lung was more 
or less turned to fluid ; the attack was about two decades 
ago and in warm June weather; the patient was made as 
comfortable as possible in bed, or in a Cutter reclining chair ; 



344 FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

after a month she was moved to the sea-shore, where she 
remained till fall; the main foodal reliance in this case was 
broiled chopped beef (see same under Beef), eaten to the 
amount of two to three pounds daily, hot water, coffee or 
tea, with but slight additions of vegetable food at first; 
there was a complete recovery, the lung regaining full 
normal action. 

FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

Diagnosis: The morphologies of the blood, sputum, faeces 
and urine carefully ascertained ; the chemistry of the urine 
likewise; supplemented by the usual physical examination 
by inspection, mensuration, auscultation, palpation and per- 
cussion, with consideration of historical features. 

Food: In many cases broiled chopped beef is to be fed 
two and three times a day, and with some patients up to 
one pound a meal ; this broiled chopped beef may be alter- 
nated, at times, with broiled or roasted beef, lamb, or 
mutton, the dark meat of turkey, fowl and game; a thin 
slice of ham or bacon broiled, allowed with broiled chopped 
beef at times as an appetizer ; the whites of eggs, dropped 
in boiling water and cooked moderately hard, in profoundly 
weak cases allowed freely, in some up to twelve to eighteen 
a day. Vegetable kingdom food: Toasted bread, cracked 
wheat, wheatlet, wheatena, rice, hominy, baked potato, Ger- 
man fried potatoes, string beans and green peas in sea- 
son, spinach, any one or two of the foregoing at meal ; 
the chemistry and morphology of the urine and morphology 
of the faeces and blood determining whether the introduction 
of any of the foregoing foods agreed or not; the reliance 
as to solid food, to repeat, placed on the broiled chopped 
beef. Relishes per se: Pepper, salt, butter, Worcestershire 
sauce, horse-radish, lemon- juice, coffee, tea, tobacco, celery, 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 345 

lettuce, water-cress, according to the demands and response 
systemically by the patient. 

Baths: Ammonia and water or sea-salt water, at tem- 
perature best for patient, daily by the use of sponge, whether 
in bed or about. 

Exercise according to conditions ; in some entirely pas- 
sive in bed by rubbing; in others, by trolley or automobile 
or carriage; in still others, patient to be placed on a bare- 
backed horse and the latter led about the yard. 

Rest, mental and physical, before and after meals always 
enjoined, i 

Medicines as per arising conditions ; tonics, cholagogues. 
alteratives, digestives, aperients, anodynes ; the last make 
the hardest problem, especially in cases of nerve-degenera- 
tion, where the crying out for sustenance (the idea of the 
ancients, and it is good) is accompanied by pain, pain, pain. 

Hot water, i.e., water raised to the boiling point, cooled 
in a saucer to a comfortably hot degree, and slowly sipped 
in one-half to one pint doses, one-half to one hour before 
each meal and on going to bed, is commonly prescribed ; 
urine going below 1016, amount diminished; aerated dis- 
tilled, or spring water, with not more than ten grains of salts 
to the gallon, to be employed. 

The foregoing is necessarily very general : indeed, as in 
achieving anything in life that is good, there is no royal 
road to success in the management of a chronic case; the 
physician in attendance must study his patients constantly, 
and this leads to the advice that the financial part of the 
matter must be thoroughly understood; a chronic case may 
be under observation for two years ; it may be permanently 
relieved in a few months ; in either case the physician and 
patient must keep in mind that while surgical work covering 
fifteen minutes to half an hour will save life, and the 
operator js gratefully paid fees which range up into the 



34-6 FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

thousands in some cases, that the end achieved medically in 
a chronic case is of just as great importance and will require 
months of work on the part of the attendant. On the 
patient's side, his finances may be in such shape that a long 
fight for health may not only impoverish him, but his 
family; such a condition necessitates the greatest frankness 
on the part of the patient; the physician who is to make the 
fight for amelioration, if not cure, must know where he 
stands. 

Finally, the art necessary in the successful management 
of this class of disease is something to be acquired only 
by the broadly trained man of medicine. The layman who 
may read this book and take unto himself the management 
of his own case or of those dear to him, will soon get into 
trouble; the accurate use of the microscope and chemistry 
he knows not of; the "shadings' 5 so well read by chemists, 
biologists, lawyers and physicians in their respective pro- 
fessions are beyond him ; or the evidence presented to the 
attendant as to blood, digestion and assimilation, may neces- 
sitate at times the prohibition practically of all foods from 
the vegetable kingdom until the system is working nor- 
mally ; admitted gladly that these are days when the layman 
knows many things, yet his knowledge, outside of his own 
calling, is only sufficient to lead him to his medical adviser, 
and to give intelligent co-operation in the fight with disease. 
Specific directions in writing, subject to change, should be 
given patient after diagnosis is made. The following lim- 
ited number of case histories we present as pictures of some 
sides of this work : 

i. Arthritis deformans; tubercular joint, (?)-io,oi. 
Englishwoman, aged thirty-eight ; governess ; had taught in 
England since 1884; in this country since 1889, caring for 
two lads in a well-to-do family ; unmarried ; medium height ; 
body well nourished, excepting left thigh and leg, which 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 347 

were somewhat atrophied; left knee-joint considerably en- 
larged and painful to touch over condyles; flexion only to 
forty-five degrees ; locomotion on level, safe, sidewalks, 
comfortable if in moderation ; stair-climbing painful ; this 
condition had obtained for twelve years; resection advised 
by surgeons in England, who had kept the limb in plaster 
cast at one time for three months ; blood under the micro- 
scope showed an excess of fibrin filaments, red corpuscles 
sticky and huddled together ; some free subdermal fat ; urine 
bilious, with but occasionally a trace of albumin; no casts 
or fatty epithelia. This case was treated as falling under 
either head of the caption above. Besides the general sys- 
temic treatment, as adjuvants were used biniodide of mer- 
cury, one-sixteenth grain, three to four times a day with 
hot water ; iodide of potash, four-grain doses before meals ; 
simple tonics and digestives as the progress of the case indi- 
cated; after some months of persistent treatment, mesotan 
was used locally on the joint and has been used ever since; 
for the last year the patient has been taking no internal 
medicine; is living on a broader dietary, but making beef 
the mainstay. There has been a marked improvement in 
the condition of blood and urine; the knee-joint has some- 
what reduced in size ; there is a diminution in the hyper- 
esthesia and the patient ambulates with much greater 
freedom. 

2. Arthritis deformans; incipient locomotor ataxia. — 
Successful business man, aged thirty- two, had been suffer- 
ing for two years with what was called rheumatism ; pains 
in neck and the joints of all the extremities ; swollen meta- 
carpal and metatarsal joints; in winter, no matter how well 
dressed and gloved, on coming into the house the fingers 
and toes would be of a ghastly, yellowish-w r hite, and on 
circulation resuming its sway the pain would be excruciating. 
The patient had had full swing at all the anti-uric acid treat- 



34-8 FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

ment. Blood-morphology gave but little evidence of ten- 
dencies even to rheumatism ; urine somewhat bilious ; no 
albumin, sugar, casts, or fatty epithelia; indeed, the case 
presented the appearance of a fairly well-established peri- 
pheral trophic disturbance due to central nerve-lesions, with 
but little evidence of disturbance of blood and urine. But 
little medicine was given in this case. It should be said 
that the behavior of the stomach was capricious, as if suffer- 
ing from defective nerve-supply. The condition of this 
patient has markedly improved ; joint disturbances practically 
nihil ; swellings have disappeared ; he has not always stuck 
to his regimen as closely as he should and deviations have 
retarded the progress of his case. 

3. Arithritis deformans; pre-locomotor ataxia. — 1897. 
Married woman, aged sixty; anchylosis right shoulder joint; 
partial anchylosis of the neck; unable to raise herself in 
bed ; if put on the floor standing, ambulated with difficulty, 
and could not go upstairs because of weakness in knees; 
blood showed, under microscope, free subdermal oil, fat in 
leucocytes, emerald green, bronze and other pigmented crys- 
tals ; urine — albumin, fatty epithelia, casts, not in abundance 
and not always present together; free oil in faeces. This 
case was rigidly treated for eight months ; but little medi- 
cine was given ; she was visited once monthly and watch of 
her case kept by examination of urine and faeces thrice 
weekly. At the end of ten months' time she was able to 
travel to the Pacific coast with a party of friends, and stood 
the pleasures and discomforts of the trip better than any 
one else in the party; shoulder and other joints normal and 
remain so. 

4. Locomotor ataxia. — 1895. Man, aged thirty-two; 
measles at age of six had stunted mental development; had 
the usual run of childhood diseases ; seriously ill at fifteen, 
with evidences of tuberculosis pulmonalis, from which he 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 349 

recovered; 1891, began to have trouble with locomotion, 
which increased until 1895, when his condition is : cannot 
stand unless supported by an assistant; if left alone, his 
body flexes to the right so that the right fingers touch the 
floor ; full history of the pains of ataxia ; blood showed free 
subdermal oil, fat in leucocytes ; urine showed albumin, 
casts, fatty epithelia, not conjoined, but appearing alter- 
nately ; also much protoplasmic catarrh. While under treat- 
ment, was moved to the cars and taken to Maine for the 
summer. Volunteered examinations by local sojourning 
physicians resulted in diagnosis of incurable locomotor 
ataxia. This man recovered and remains in moderate health 
to-day, walking with ease. 

5. Locomotor ataxia. — March, 1904, a man aged fifty- 
six, consulted the junior writer ; by profession a civil engi- 
neer ; thoroughly educated here and abroad ;with this training 
and the best of habits, business and personal, he had achieved 
success ; weight, one hundred and fifty-six ; height, six feet 
two inches. He related that for about four months he had 
been suffering from a cold on the lungs ; that a physician 
under whose care he had been recently, stated that he had 
a tubercular lesion in the right lung. Examination — right 
lung normal, with the exception of occasional rales upper 
portion ; left lung, rales over lower half — but slight increase, 
on percussion, of dullness ; heart somewhat enlarged and 
beating at one hundred ; sputum profuse, containing mucous 
corpuscles enlarged and distended by granular gravel, also 
gravelly concretions freely found ; finger-nails in normal 
condition ; no fever ; no hectic appearances ; no night-sweats. 
Blood showed slight tendency to ropiness of the red cor- 
puscles ; there were present but slightest increase of fibrin 
filaments and no evidence of tuberculous matter, of which 
much has been written by American writers. Urine normal, 
except as to some bile and the presence of protoplasmic 



35° FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

colloid catarrh; liver somewhat enlarged. The two things 
which disturbed the patient were loss of flesh and pain, the 
latter mainly evidenced in the chest on either side alternately. 

Diagnosis. — Tuberculosis negatived; it was stated 
frankly that the left lung was in an asthmatic catarrhal 
condition; that the liver was enlarged and that the nerve 
symptoms were an accompaniment of the presence of proto- 
plasmic colloid catarrh in the urine, and that there was dan- 
ger of some serious trouble in the nervous system ; this was 
enlarged upon to the members of his family and a careful 
prognosis given. 

He was placed on treatment and somewhat improved 
for a couple of weeks ; then the pain element became worse 
and it was necessary to put the patient to bed. The gravelly 
condition of the sputum diminished, together with the 
amount of expectoration ; the urine cleared of the bile and 
catarrh ; the blood, which had not been far from normal, 
became normal ; yet the pain element increased ; first one 
lung, then the other; then the right side, over the liver: 
then in the bowels ; then in the legs ; then the thighs ; and 
finally it located itself in the right hip. At this time the 
liver had increased in size and was freely felt under the 
free margin of the ribs. The patient was under the care 
of the late Dr. Geo. F. Lightfoot, of Arlington, N. J., ana 
the junior writer. A consultation with New York and 
Newark physicians resulted as follows: that there was no 
tuberculosis, though the left lung was markedly dull on 
percussion. One of the consultants, because of a lump 
found, about the size of a hen's egg, under the liver, sug- 
gested gall-stones and that the pain in the right hip came 
from that as a reflex; both agreed that the possibility of a 
nerve degeneration was the only solution and due to an 
attack of grip two years before; one suggested operation 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 35 1 

for gall-stones, which the family, as well as Dr. Lightfoot 
and the junior writer, could not agree to. Surcease in part 
from pain only by the use of morphine, which would bring 
back bile in the urine and the liver would swell ; yet calomel 
in divided doses would relieve the same ; patient losing flesh 
steadily. Sticks closely to directions, and the closest medical 
care is given. 

In June the family desired that the senior writer, who 
at the time was out of the State, should see the case. The 
latter responded, and about four hours were spent in the 
examination of the patient and his blood, urine, faeces and 
sputum. At this time, the pain, which had been such a fear- 
ful symptom, had diminished ; the patient was taking mucn 
less morphine and was eating well ; but a new symptom had 
arisen ; to wit — difficulty in swallowing. A most careful 
laryngological examination was made by the consultant ; 
beyond a dryness of the throat mucous membranes, there 
was nothing abnormal ; yet it was almost impossible for the 
patient to swallow. He talked frankly with the consultant, 
who assured him that it was absolutely necessary for him 
to eat and drink, in which he acquiesced. This was on a 
Tuesday ; Wednesday and Thursday some improvement in 
swallowing, which was, however, but temporary, the diffi- 
culty returning in increased force ; nourishment given by the 
rectum, but the patient went quietly down the hill and died 
the following Sunday. No autopsy, though much desired 
by attendants. The diagnosis reached at the final consulta- 
tion was of nerve degeneration ; that the abatement of pain 
in other parts of the body showed amelioration and that the 
symptoms as to the throat were caused by a breaking out of 
the disease in the nerve centers governing the same; that 
if we could carry the patient over that point in the history 
of his case, he stood a reasonable hope of recovery. It is 



3$2 FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

hard to fight out such a losing battle with death as this was, 
and to the physicians in attendance the only pleasing feature 
was the splendid, intelligent co-operation of the family. 

6. Angina pectoris. — Over twenty-five years ago, a 
mother was sick under a complication of diseases, in which 
angina pectoris was a prominent feature; the attacks were 
almost daily ; she was prostrate in bed without appetite and 
too weak to raise voice, hands or head; the heart's area on 
percussion was larger than normal ; the first sound pre - 
sented a sonorous murmur, heard towards the left; aortic 
sounds normal ; impulse increased ; the sense of constriction, 
suffocation and impending death was markedly character- 
istic, as if a giant gripped her chest; bad prognosis given; 
she was persistently fed against the appetite and in due 
time recovered normal tone and action of the heart, living 
twenty years to die of other troubles, the heart remaining 
faithful till the end. 

7. Enlarged heart ■■ simulating tuberculosis. — A veter- 
inary student some twenty years ago sought advice because 
of several hemoptyses ; blood morphology negatived tuber- 
culosis; the patient was much run down from overwork 
and underfeeding; examination of the chest confirmed the 
blood finding and demonstrated that the hemoptyses were 
due to an enlarged condition oi the heart causing a stasis 
of blood in the lungs, said stasis relieving itself by forcing 
the blood through the mucous membranes with subsequent 
expectoration ; stringent orders were given as to proper 
feeding, rest and hygiene; but little medicine employed; 
the gentleman is in the active practice of his profession 
to-day. 

Note. — It is a common thing in the management of 
chronic cases to have patients voluntarily call our attention 
to the fact that in the course of treatment the left chest 
wall, which has been larger than the right, has gone down 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 353 

to normal ; by physics, this is easily explained ; given, a blood 
stream of increased specific gravity due to an increase of 
fibrin filaments and a massing of the blood corpuscles, the 
heart must automatically increase in size to meet the aug- 
mented work of pumping the blood through the many 
thousands of miles of microscopic capillaries; further this 
enlarged condition is found in athletes unduly trained; 
bringing the blood back to normal condition with proper 
treatment of any disarranged functions, the nutrition of the 
heart takes care of itself; this work is accomplished some- 
times with a speed that is amazing, as in the following case : 

8. Enlarged heart. — 1898. A young man, about to take 
(in a month's time) examination for one of the arms of 
the military service of the United States, presented himself 
for thorough examination, stripping to the nude ; urine was 
found to be somewhat bilious ; liver otherwise normal ; kid- 
neys, stomach and nervous system normal ; blood not much 
out of the way ; fine condition of the lungs with ample 
increase on inspiration ; but the heart was banging and 
pounding over an enlarged area, and the area of dulness 
on percussion was increased ; had been an athlete and 
smoked cigarettes considerably ; how much the latter had to 
do with his condition is not known ; the heart's sounds were 
those of what is called a "tobacco heart;" he had stopped 
his cigarettes ; cholagogues were administered ; strychnia 
freely given ; careful directions imposed as to the drinking 
of plenty of pure water and a limited diet as to starches 
and sugars, with unlimited use of broiled beef imposed ; 
the candidate passed both physical and mental examinations 
and is a commissioned officer to-day in the service of our 
great Republic. 

9. Obesity — enlarged heart. — In 1888, the junior writer 
was engaged some eight hundred miles from New York on 
special work covering six months of time ; a young woman 



354 FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

of small skeleton, moderate height and weighing two hun- 
dred and fifty-six pounds, consulted him because of the 
inconvenience of her obese condition as well as for 
dyspncea; the fat was so much that to accurately mark out 
the outlines of the heart was impossible; suffice it to relate 
exertion brought on the dyspncea noted; she was rigidly 
dieted on little but broiled beef preparations; salicin and 
strychnia employed as heart tonics ; plenty of water allowed ; 
on returning to New York, she kept in touch with her 
adviser by correspondence and sending specimens of urine; 
one such contained the largest deposit of cystine crystals 
that we have ever seen; she was warned that she had been 
eating either the yolks of eggs or oatmeal and to look out 
for a nasty attack of rheumatism, which unfortunately 
came, needing the attention of local and consulting physi- 
cians, the site of attack being the stomach ; her weight had 
been reduced under systemic treatment one hundred pounds 
and her heart beautifully weathered the mix-up of cystinic 
blood and the stomach ; this case was living ten years there- 
after in good health. 

10. Obesity — weak heart. — 1905. A mother aged fifty- 
eight, born and reared in comfortable circumstances, which 
have persisted all through life, of below the medium height, 
weighing one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, complained 
of difficulty in climbing stairs, of pain about the heart and 
flushing of face and head on any unusual exertion, that is 
for her; heart pulsation, irregular, beating three or four 
times regularly, then intermitting; same difficulties as in 
previous case as to exploration of chest and determination 
of actual size of heart; this patient was treated for nine 
months ; reduction of weight, one to one and one-half pounds 
per week ; the blood being somewhat ropy and sticky, small 
doses of iodide of potash were exhibited with upsetting 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 355 

effects; likewise small doses of Phytolacca decandra could 
not be borne ; cholagogues were prescribed for liver ; strych- 
nia mainly for heart; the patient had been a great eater 
of sweets, and diet therefore somewhat irksome, though 
not as restricted as in previous case; the result of this nine 
months of work is eminently satisfactory to the patient and 
the family as well as the medical attendant. 

ii. Epilepsy — \e petit mal. — Though petit, was big 
enough to wreck the brilliant prospects of a young col- 
legian; his urine showed albumin, fatty epithelia and casts, 
not synchronously but separately; at times, the abundance 
of kidney casts was excessive ; this patient was considerably 
relieved but changed treatment and is living to-day on a 
farm, after a lapse of fifteen years, uncured of his nerve 
condition. 

12. Epilepsy — le grand mal. — Girl, thirteen years of 
age ; albumin in urine marked ; also present casts and fatty 
epithelia; difficulty in managing patient, an orphan; solid 
food restricted to broiled beef and then changed to steamed 
whole wheat; if the patient did not drink molasses from a 
jug, or otherwise disobey, there were no convulsions; after 
some months she was able to bear without digestive troubles 
beef and wheat together, and as the case progressed, other 
foods were brought into her dietary ; seen eight years after 
commencing treatment, she had been well, with no recur- 
rence of seizures. 

13. Chronic Bright' s disease. — March, 1898, a middle- 
aged man sent from a Southern State, where he had been 
wintering, to the senior writer six specimens of urine, the 
examination of which resulted in a diagnosis of impending 
Bright's disease, and of scrofula. The gentleman went to a 
large city, was under the care of an eminent physician for 
five weeks, who contradicted the diagnosis of Bright's ; then 



35^ FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

was treated by another physician of national reputation, 
who examined but one specimen of urine and also negatived 
Bright's. 

September, 1898, the sick man, dissatisfied, came to 
New York — the senior writer had not returned from his 
summer sojourn at Buzzard's Bay and the case fell to the 
junior writer for examination — and stayed here one week 
for daily study. Blood somewhat rheumatic, free subdermal 
oil, fat globules in leucocytes and scrofulous. Urine, on 
testing by nitric acid and heat, filled full with albumen, 
which on settling would take up half the bulk of specimen ; 
bile present ; under the microscope, casts and fatty epithelia 
were very plentifully found, also amyloid ; slight colloid ca- 
tarrh and more of same in faeces. Patient distinctly informed 
of his condition of Bright's disease and weak heart, and 
hope given him that he might be relieved; decided to be 
treated; went to his home, four hundred miles distant; 
thrice weekly sent specimens of urine and fseces, and of 
sputum when there was same; the evidence furnished by 
study of the last showed asthmatic tendencies. 

June, 1899. Seen in Pennsylvania by the junior writer 
while away at a consultation. The urine had meanwhile 
practically cleared of albumen, with great diminution of 
the abnormal morphologies; blood improved; general con- 
dition much better. Treatment continued for another year. 

May, 1901. Has come to New York for overhauling; a 
visit of ten days. Blood — no rheumatism, but slight traces 
of free fat and scrofula. Urine — no albumen, no fatty 
epithelia, no amyloid ; daily examination for the period of 
visit showed but one cast. Catarrh of the nasal, pharyn- 
geal, and urinary tracts, and somewhat of the bowels, as 
shown by the colloid discharges. Some days has been able 
to walk eight miles. Had wintered in a Southern State, 



FOOD TN CHRONIC DISEASES 357 

and the cold, raw weather of the unusual May of 1901 has 
depressed him. In "better condition, 1904. 

15. Chronic Bright' s disease. — 1885. Middle-aged 
woman; same evidence of Bright's disease as in the fore- 
going case; also capillary bronchitis with asthmatic sputum 
containing lung fibre. Living to-day, with no evidence of 
Bright's. 

16. Double pleurisy and tuberculosis. — Before the Civil 
War, the senior writer in company with the late Dr. Ben- 
jamin Cutter, examined a case of double pleurisy and tuber- 
culosis ; naturally the prognosis was not encouraging ; the 
patient was an Irishman, who had a fine hog in the pen 
adjoining the house; he was advised to kill the hog, (it was 
winter time) and eat him without any aid from his family ; 
the man turned up a year later in good health and said that 
he had eaten the whole of the hog. This was before the 
days of careful beef feeding in tuberculosis. 

Space does not permit other practical illustrations except 
as under Food in Surgical Affections and The Care of 
the Aged ; tuberculosis has been referred to specifically under 
Alcohol and Tuberculosis, and Fermentation, and needs no 
amplification here; reference to the bibliographical list will 
lead to further information. We wish to emphasize that 
the profession is far ahead of the laity in the appreciation 
of the importance of the management of chronic disease; 
it is so easy and comfortable to take hold of one in the pre- 
stages of a chronic ill and put him on his feet; the medical 
man sitting in a restaurant and leisurely surveying those 
about him picks out men and women that he knows are 
doomed to near extinction unless they mend their ways; 
that the family physician is hampered, despite his hold on 
his clientele, is sadly too true; it would seem as if men 
would not think of the possibilities of the habitat of their 



35^ FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 

divine spirits being in need of repair ; if their friends become 
ill, they are full of solicitous attention and the physician 
called in, has his hands full with what is liable to be a hope- 
less job; without any question, this is the most important 
work for the medical profession, whether among the rich 
or the poor; indeed, the time will come when the State 
will have to employ, for purely economic reasons, physicians 
of experience in general medicine to care for the moderate 
wage earner ; this means a revolution of our present pauper- 
izing hospital system ; the enlisted man in the military service 
receives the care of the best medical talent without any loss 
of self-respect; the judiciary are well and justly paid for 
eminent services; likewise the physician in hospital work 
should be; the State of New York has done much through 
its Department of Charities to cut down indiscriminate 
chapty ; but this work is only the inception ; healthy and 
serene old age should be the heritage of all, and can be 
obtained only by proper living; the finest work in medicine 
is to be the preventive management of chronic disease with 
death at greatly advanced age by the simple, kindly, snuffing 
out of the candle of life. (See The Care of the Aged.) 

The writers are not particularly enamoured by the med- 
ical utterances of "yellow journalism;" we do take pleasure, 
however, in abstracting an editorial of The Evening Post 
(New York, November 8, 1906), with due thanks for a 
notable lay pronouncement: 

"Real Prevention of Disease." 

"The great benefit that medical science has brought to 
humanity in the last half century has been chiefly through 
preventive medicine. . . . But preventive medicine has 
concerned itself mainly with contagious diseases which 
threaten wholesale, and deals but slightly in the popular 



FOOD IN CHRONIC DISEASES 359 

conception, with individuals. The result is that there has 
grown up in the public mind a feeling of carelessness regard- 
ing disease except where the State is supposed to protect us. 
We are much concerned about the purity of our drinking 
water, but few stop to ponder the fact that a majority of us 
will die of some chronic disease which in its incipiency 
might be arrested. For protection from acute infection 
we may depend upon boards of health, but for safeguarding 
against chronic disease we must trust to the physician. He, 
however, can do nothing to prolong our days unless we 
give him an opportunity to detect a malady in its early 
stage. Health is without price, yet how many periodically 
submit themselves to their doctors for thorough examina- 
tion? That such a periodic examination is the wisest of 
precautions, is shown by the rejected applications in every 
life insurance company. Thousands were boastfully proud 
of their robust health until some life insurance physician 
rated them 'bad risks/ 

"The conditions under which Americans live in large 
cities are particularly adapted prematurely to age the heart 
and arteries. In all probability, these conditions will not 
soon change, and the only way one may protect himself is 
by measuring the wear and tear on his organism. Medicine 
has grown rich in methods and instruments of precision for 
the detection of subtle changes indicating the onset of 
disease. A manufacturer with a fortune in machinery would 
not neglect to employ an expert engineer to scrutinize it 
from time to time. Very likely, however, the same man has 
omitted to ascertain through a physician whether his manner 
of life has worked ravages with his heart or arteries. Al- 
most every one goes to a dentist at least once a year ; why 
should one not go to a physician? . . . Oliver Wendell 
Holmes once said that the w T ay to live to old age is to become 



3°0 FOOD IN SURGICAL AFFECTIONS 

the victim of a chronic disease and then take care of your- 
self. The real danger in the chronic type of disease is the 
insidious progress that gives its victim no warning, until 
the period when medical aid avails is past." 

FOOD IN SURGICAL AFFECTIONS 

It may be said that the main theme of this book is pre- 
ventive medicine, and that proper feeding, hygiene, and 
necessary medication may prevent many of the surgical 
ills. Metabolistic surgery is better than the surgeon's 
surgery. 

The practice of medicine involves the use of any means 
of relief as seasoned judgment after profound study may 
indicate; systemic treatment may relieve without surgery or 
may so reinforce the sick that surgery is employed with 
far enhanced results ; an operation on a patient with sticky, 
ropy, blood, weakened heart and distended stomach and 
intestines, sometimes has to be performed, with small chance 
of successful outcome. 

In the Section on Gynecology, of the Ninth International 
Medical Congress, Washington, 1887, Dr. R. J. Nunn, of 
Savannah, ex-President of the Medical Association of Geor- 
gia, stated that for years it had been his invariable rule to 
compel women whom he had confined, to be watched for a 
month or more after arising from bed, their hygiene and food 
closely attended to, and any local wounds topically treated; 
and he had not had a case of cancer occur in such so 
managed. 

Thirty years ago, a middle-aged woman, suffering from 
a large hard uterine fibroid, was put on treatment in prepara- 
tion for surgery or galvanism by profound abdominal 
puncture ; in time, the tumor was so greatly diminished that 



FOOD IN SURGICAL AFFECTIONS 36 1 

the surgical or galvanic intervention was indefinitely post- 
poned and eventually the tumor disappeared. 

A few years later, a woman likewise middle-aged, 
with a correspondingly large and hard tumor, was treated 
systemically, with great improvement of general condition 
but little diminution of the growth; she decided on opera- 
tion; at this time, the mortality in hysterectomies was not 
a pleasing subject for contemplation; the late Dr. T. Gail- 
lard Thomas removed the growth by abdominal hysterec- 
tomy, the patient recovering so speedily that it was 
eventful on the side of normality; she is living to-day in 
good health. 

1905, a young married woman suffered the first four 
months of pregnancy greatly from nausea, vomiting and 
anorexia; she finally aborted, and for the following six 
weeks there was almost daily menorrhagia; the junior writer 
saw the case in consultation with the attendant, a gentleman 
of large practice and splendid knowledge of surgical tech- 
nique; we concurred that the hemorrhages were due to a 
sessile growth two inches in diameter, in the anterior wall 
of the womb ; the proposition was put clearly to patient and 
husband, that three courses of treatment were before them : 
first, systemic and foodal ; second, galvanic ; and third, 
surgery; they elected the first, with the naturally associated 
topical treatment of tampons and such medication as neces- 
sary, and in four months' time the growth had disappeared. 

1890, while the senior writer was in Berlin, one of his old 
patients consulted the junior for a flat, quite hard growth 
in the right breast, four inches in diameter; this patient, 
aged fifty-five, had been advised to have said growth 
extirpated ; she was a professional philanthropist, constantly 
wasting her vital forces on reform work ; advice was given 
that operation might not be necessary, and she agreed 



3^2 FOOD IN SURGICAL AFFECTIONS 

to eschew her philanthropies and to follow directions as to 
food, hygiene and medicine; the growth disappeared m less 
than six months of time, and she is living to-day free 
from it. 

The use over thirty years ago by profound abdominal 
puncture of a galvanic current of low intensity and con- 
siderable quantity, in a series of cases of abdominal fibroids, 
resulted in cures of twenty per cent, and relief from dis- 
tressing symptoms with diminution of growths in a large 
per cent., eight per cent, dying from natural causes ; this 
explanation was then given as to the modus operandi: the 
galvanic current had so affected the nerve supply governing 
said growths, that nature was able, in the majority of cases, 
to increase her hold, so to speak, on said growths, and in 
part or whole absorbed them. But in feeding, we go still 
further, stop the causes lying in insufficient nourishment 
and the feeding of fermenting foods with the consequent 
paralyzing effects so often noted here, and in time also 
obtain results in a certain percentage of cases without 
surgery, provided the vital forces of the patient are not prac- 
tically lost and directions are followed persistently without 
murmur or repining ; determination or will, and that certain 
unmeasured and unseen element, constitution, have to be 
considered; no laboratory can measure such, and it is only 
the experience of the well balanced and trained medical 
man that gets the best out of such. 

Cases of strictured bowels have been alluded to under 
fermentation; let us go a little farther, practically: a man, 
thirty years of age, was struck by a slowly moving loco- 
motive and thrown twenty feet ; was shocked and taken home 
for a few days, but had no local evidence of injury 
external or internal ; he resumed work in the city and after 
some weeks began to complain of constipation and intes- 
tinal gases, with the passage of short, scrappy or ribbon-like 



THE CARE OF THE AGED 363 

stools ; examination revealed an otherwise normal man ; ab- 
domen somewhat fleshy and no tumor could be felt ; but the 
bowel conditions persisted; the patient's occupation placed 
him in touch with a number of physicians, who frankly 
admitted that it was beyond them as to diagnosis ;* our 
opinion was that he was suffering from a strictured condi- 
tion in the large intestine, due to shock to the nervous 
system, accompanied perhaps by some local internal bruise 
(if you please) caused by the impact of the locomotive; at 
any rate, a line of treatment that ensured a sweet condition 
of the stomach and intestines in a few months removed all 
of his symptoms of discomfort and the physical signs of the 
gross morphology of the stools. 

1905. an overworked middle-aged man, whose profession 
required great mental activity and in whose family there had 
been much illness, began to lose weight and strength; on 
the abdomen appeared enlarged subdermal veins ; the trans- 
verse colon was thickened and enlarged throughout its entire 
length, the emaciation of the patient making diagnosis most 
clearly palpable. Our anxiety as to the outcome was fully 
shared by the family and friends of the patient; treatment, 
systemic, was persisted in for months ; there was a gradual 
absorption of the fibroid (if you please) tissue, and to date 
there has been no return ; ten months of isolation from work 
was taken, sojourning in places from Florida to Maine, 
though difficulty was experienced at times in getting proper 
food when away from home. 

THE CARE OF THE AGED 

I. December, 1903; retired civil engineer (aged eighty) 
of international reputation ; had been of exemplary habits, 
but an enormous worker ; for months he had suffered from 

*These cases are rare, 



3^4 THE CARE OF THE AGED 

swelling of the finger joints, preventing closing, with stiff- 
ness of the lower extremities causing difficult and painful 
locomotion; his trouble had been called rheumatism and for 
that treated ; blood showed free subdermal oil in specimen ; 
color below par ; some huddling of red corpuscles ; no fibrae- 
mia ; none of the cystinic and other crystals found in rheu- 
matism; urine at times slightly albuminous, but once only 
were found any casts. Diagnosis : disturbance in the central 
nervous system causing the peripheral troubles above noted. 
Was carefully treated, with slow return of normal locomo- 
tion ; now he goes to his office each business day for con- 
sulting work in his profession. 

II. About two months later, the patient's wife, some 
few years his junior, a delicate, fragile appearing lady, 
overate and went to bed with a violent abdominal colic ; 
immediate treatment, a hypo, of morphin, atropin and 
hyoscin hydrobromate ; systemic treatment followed ; a slug- 
gish liver was an important element in her case ; also, great 
weakness. This case was "gentled" along for several months 
with careful nursing and medication ; is now in good health, 
careful of what she eats, and sits in the seat of honor in her 
family, a comfort and delight to her kin and friends. 

III. A rear-admiral, retired, at the age of sixty-four 
was found, with occasional slight evidences of albumin or 
casts, to be suffering loss of fiesh, general weakness and 
hardening of the arteries. Habits had been exemplary as to 
liquor, fairly so as to food, but he had been a very arduous 
follower of his professional work; after eight months of 
treatment, his arteries had retured to almost normal feel; 
is living in fair health to-day. 

We will not say at what age one becomes senile; these 
are strenuous days, but people are living longer than for- 
merly and should live still longer. 

The aged need careful attention, the physician examining 



THE CARE OF THE AGED 365 

secretions thrice weekly. In case III. the morphology of 
the feces was a very decided aid in the prescribing of food. 

Aerated, distilled or a neutral spring water these cases 
need much of ; best drank at a comfortably hot temperature 
one hour before meals, and on going to bed at night ; urin- 
ometer will give indication of amount needed ; the water 
should be previously raised to the boiling point. Avoid 
all charged drinks. 

Foods that ferment into alcohol and vinegar must be 
forbidden, and beef must not be forbidden ; the hardening 
of arteries is largely a matter of cholesterin deposits, a 
form of fatty degeneration ; beef is the best of foods to wipe 
out such a condition. In case I. there was more or less fatty 
or fibroid degeneration going on in the nervous system ; 
beef is of all food best fitted to arrest such degenerations, 
and replace by normal tissues. With the beef may be eaten 
the whites of eggs dropped in hot water and cooked mod- 
erately hard ; dark meat of fowl, turkey or game, and mutton 
and lamb allowed as they agree. Bring in wheat prepara- 
tions, baked potatoes, spinach, rice, hominy, string beans or 
green peas in season (but not canned), according as they 
agree. Bread should be preferably made from a gluten 
flour, but look out that the flour is not faked ; the microscope 
will clearly indicate; avoid oat meal, baked beans, vinegar, 
desserts, pastries, cakes, salads, and indeed all swill-produc- 
ing foods. We criticise the hog for its habits, but 
anatomically we are much like the hog, and eat things that 
are speedily swill. 

Medication: Case II. had had a similar attack a year or 
so before and was ill a long time ; criticism was made that 
the medication at that time had been too severe ; these cases 
do not need large dosage ; get your results, but do not over- 
whelm the nervous system thereby. The liver must be 
attended to; we like a mixture of equal parts of boneset 



366 THE CARE OF THE AGED 

and dandelion, fluid extracts, in doses of from one-quarter 
to one teaspoonful, in hot water, two or three times a day ; 
with this one may have to add a little cascara sagrada ; th^ 
exsiccated sulphate of soda, C. P., in doses of one-half to one 
teaspoonful in a cup of hot water in the morning is very 
efficacious ; these cases need careful study in this line ; as 
progress continues, less medicine will be needed; good old 
calomel at times is valuable. As to tonics, pyrophosphate 
of iron, salicin and strychnine, with small dosage, i.e., 
enough to get effects ; digitalis, if indicated, must be given 
with great care ; we prefer tablets of the fluid extract. This 
leads to a consideration of 

Coca erythroxylon as a food: This native of Peru, whose 
leaves have been used for centuries by the Andeans, is prob- 
ably less understood than most properties of nature employed 
in«medicine ; it is confounded with cocoa by those who should 
know better; and further, its products as dispensed have 
been much sophisticated, intentionally or unwittingly. "The 
history of coca is most intimately entwined with the re- 
ligious, racial, and even political history of Peru and the 
adjacent countries, and has even left its permanent impres- 
sion upon that of their conquerors (see Mortimers Peru — 
the History of Coca. ) . This history is of great physiological 
interest, since coca is unquestionably the agent which has 
enabled the dwellers of the higher Andes not only to with- 
stand the effects of a high elevation, but to become noted for 
their physical strength and endurance in spite of them. De- 
prived of its support, those abilities fail. Foreigners going 
there have found it possible to gain a similar assistance from 
its use and to endure without distress physical trials, which 
are otherwise unendurable." — Coca, National Dispensatory, 

I905- 

Dr. W. Golden Mortimer, in his monumental work, 

says : "The probability is that coca, through its nitrogenous 



THE CARE OF THE AGED 367 

influences, so affects metabolism as to enable the organism 
to utilize substances which might otherwise pass off as 
waste' ; ; quoting Bartholow we further find "It is probable 
that some of the constituents of coca are utilized in the 
economy as food, and that the retardation of tissue waste 
is not the sole reason why work may be done by its use 
which cannot be done by the same person without it." The 
senior writer is now in his seventy-fifth year, residing a 
greater part of the time at West Falmouth, Massachusetts, on 
Buzzard's Bay, and is engaged in original and literary work 
with visits to cities as consultations require ; overdoing 
on a trip with a resulting upset of the enteron, the quickest 
and liveliest aid to normal condition was the use of The- 
Mariani ; there was a sense of relief from exhaustion and 
prostrating weakness, which no other drug would give. For 
years we have been intimately acquainted with the Vin- 
Elixir and The-Mariani ; too much credit cannot be given 
Angelo Mariani for selecting the right kind of leaves and 
properly transporting and rightly blending them in his 
always stable preparations; that the aged, as well as others 
in acute and chronic exhausting disease, have been greatly 
benefited by such we know well ; those who cannot bear any 
preparations containing sugar, may safely use the The- 
Mariani, which is a fluid extract ; the hearts of the aged 
need care, and the Mariani preparations as indicated are of 
wonderful assistance. In the collective investigation of Dr. 
Mortimer (ut supra) we find that coca has been used 
exclusive of all other food by seven physicians in cases 
ranging from three to twenty-one days, and in one case 
for several months. 

Dr. J. Leonard Corning, in his work "Brain Exhaustion," 
says : "Vin Mariani is the best in the market ; besides exer- 
cising an invigorating effect upon the cerebral centers, it 
imparts an indescribable sensation of satisfaction." In 



3^8 THE CARE OF THE AGED 

"Brain Rest" he says : 'This is undoubtedly the most potent 
for good in the treatment of exhaustive and irritative condi- 
tions of the central nervous system." 

Dr. Beverley Robinson, New York Medical Record, 
says : "In 'Vin Mariani' we have a powerful stimulant to the 
economy that frequently will strengthen or give tone to the 
nerves in a rapid manner, that no other drug with which I 
am familiar can accomplish." 

As to the dangers of cocaine habit from the use of reliable 
preparations of the leaves, Dr. Mortimer cites evidence of 
scientists who have thoroughly investigated local conditions 
in Peru, and have been satisfied to report that the only habit 
observed was that of longevity, in some instances to one 
hundred and thirty years of life. 

Use ammonia and warm water sponge baths nightly as 
a master of fine hygiene, enough ammonia tc make the water 
soft to the feel. 

On this subject a book could be easily written; these 
cases are generally a delight to manage ; intelligent effort is 
appreciated by the patient ; moreover, the physician will open 
up associations with those that have lived, worked, endured 
and learned, that will be of great mental and spiritual wel- 
fare to him. 

Apoplexy, the foe of the aged and sometimes of the 
younger, needs attention here ; it must never be forgotten 
that immortal Robinson Crusoe was written by Defoe after 
he had suffered from two strokes; it is of course best to 
detect these cases in their pre-stages ; the blood and urine 
studied of people who have begun to age (perhaps prema- 
turely from excesses) will tell the tale whether the case 
is drifting towards embolism or fatty degeneration of 
the blood vessels of the brain. Called to see a case 
stricken, the same means of diagnosis will differentiate 
between the two troubles and with consequent intelligent 



URIC ACID SUMMER FEEDING 369 

treatment ; a plugged blood vessel is a different proposition 
clinically from a ruptured one. Furthermore, nature is a 
kindly Dame, even in these stricken cases ; unless the damage 
is about or on a vital center of the brain, absorption 
takes place when causes are stopped and the system prop- 
erly oiled and fed. The writers' cousin, Dr. Calvin Cutter, 
whose Physiologies are so well known to three generations, 
after his first "stroke," pluckily prognosticated the second 
and third and went about his affairs ; the "strokes" followed 
in due time, Dr. Cutter surviving only a few days the last ; 
this was nearly forty years ago ; better medical work is now 
done, and it is a pity the present knowledge could not have 
existed then. 

URIC ACID : MEMORANDUM 

''The Chemistry, Physiology and Pathology of Uric Acid 
and the important Purin Bodies with a discussion of the 
Metabolism in Gout." By Francis McCrudden, of the Har- 
vard Physiological Laboratory. This work is based on the 
statements of over seven hundred authors about more than 
two hundred and seventy subjects. We have treated herein 
(pages 70, 71, 72) to some extent the relations of uric acid 
and beef; the findings of McCrudden are directly opposed 
to those of Haig. This book, while not covering all of this 
subject, should be in the library of every medical man who 
desires to co-ordinate the knowledge obtained by chemistry, 
morphology and practical medicine. 

SUMMER FEEDING 

We wish to gently protest against the annual sententious 
animadversions as to beef in summer ; the unusual abstrac- 
tion of salts by excessive sweating and the depression 
caused bv the action of heat on the nerve centers must be 



37° SUMMER FEEDING EPILOGUE 

considered; many people think it wise to push ice cream 
(its sugar is a heat producer) and complex salads; these 
combinations are speedily turned to swill and do not make 
nerve force. The man or child who keeps his alimentary 
tract sweet and feeds his nerve centers with roasted or broiled 
animal foods and a moderate vegetable dietary, with care- 
ful discrimination as to the fruits he eats, will have little 
chance to suffer the usual summer upsets. 

EPILOGUE 

This labor of love and vexation is temporarily ended ; of 
love as it is vital to our life work as physicians and men ; of 
vexation, as it is so greatly condensed by the instructions of 
the publisher, that the fruitage is hardly more than a hand- 
book or primer; further, the illustrations by microphotog- 
raphy and drawings, the former with powers ranging to the 
i /75th inch objective, relating to the biology, pathology and 
therapeutics of food, have been eliminated and rest securely 
in the vaults of a safe deposit company till they are wanted. 
In condensing the text, specific references to the liver, spleen, 
kidneys and lungs, under each food, have been cut out; 
suffice it to say that the closing chapters contain sufficient 
matter relating to such organs for the time being; in fact, 
a thousand pages would not suffice for the full elaboration 
of this subject. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY: PARTIAL. 

Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. G, and State 
Agricultural Experiment Stations. Reports. 

Thomas Cogan, Schoolmaster at Manchester. Haven of Health, 
1589, said to be the first English work on food published. 

Griffith and Henfrey. Micrographic Dictionary. London, 1883. 
John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 

Samuel William Johnson. How Crops Grow; many editions. 
Orange Judd Company, New York. 

James H. Salisbury, M.D., LL.D. The Relation of Alimentation 
and Disease. J. H. Vaill & Co., 1888, New York. 

Funk & Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary. New York. 

W. Golden Mortimer, M.D. Peru : History of Coca. New York, 
J. H. Vaill & Co., 1901. 

American Book Company, New York. Twentieth Century Book 
on Hygiene. 

J. Leonard Corning, M.D., Brain Exhaustion. D. Appleton & 
Co., New York. 

J. Leonard Corning, M.D., Brain Rest. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York. 

Ephraim Cutter, M.D., LL.D.* 

Feeding against the Appetite. Medical Register, Philadelphia, 
Pa., April 2d and 9th, 1887. 

Food as an ^Esthetic, Chemic, Physiologic, Pathologic and Thera- 
peutic. Am. Journal of Dental Science, January and February, 
1880. 

The Therapeutical Drinking of Hot Water: its Origin and Use. 
Am. Med. Weekly, January 8th, 1883; Druggists' Circular, Au- 
gust, 1883; London Lancet, September 15th, 1883; Journal 
d'Hygiene, October 25th, 1883 ; Therapeutic Gazette, Scientific 
American, Constitutionnelle, and the medical and secular press 
of Paris. 

Medical Food Ethics Now and to Come. Secretary's Address, 
Section Physiology and Dietetics, Am. Med. Ass'n., 1892. The 
Journal of Assoc, 1893. 

*Of over 500 titles of communications, a limited number is here noted. 

371 



37 2 bibliography: partial 

Food, Nervousness, and Divorce. Therapeutic Gazette, August, 
1880. 

Food as a Medicine in Uterine Fibroids. American Journal of 
Obstetrics, October, 1877. 

Food and Uterine Fibroids. International Med. Congress, Berlin, 
1890. 

Diet in Cancer. Albany Med. Annals, July-August, 1887. 

Treatment of Consumption by Animal Food. Boston Journal of 
Chemistry, January, 1876. 

Treatment of Consumption. Trans? ctions Am. Med. Assn., 1880, 
pp. 76. Seventy cases reported. 

Food and Tubercle. International Med. Congress, Berlin, 1890. 

Food as a Medicine in Typhoid Fever and in Laryngeal Growths. 
Middlesex E. Dis. Med. Society, Massachusetts, May, 1877. 

Food in Nervous Affections. Journal of Am. Med. Association, 
1888. 

•Food in Motherhood. Book. D. Stott, 370 Oxford street, Lon- 
don, January, 1890. Out of print. 

Heafrt Disease and Feeding. Open letter to W. T. Gardner, M.D., 
LL.D., Glasgow. Albany Medical Annals, September, 1888. 

Feeding of Nursing Children. Virginia Med. Monthly, August, 
1880. 

Food in Agalaxia. American Journal of Obstetrics, New York, 
April, 1878. 

Candy. Boston Journal of Chemistry, April, 1876. 

Teeth and Flour. American Journal of Dental Science, Novem- 
ber, 1878. 

Is Flour our Proper Food? Trans. New Hampshire State Med. 
Society, 1875. 

Does the Use of Flour Promote the Decay of Teeth? Boston 
Journal of Chemistry, December, 1874. 

Does the Use of Flour Promote Affections of the Nervous Sys- 
tem? Boston Journal of Chemistry, February, 1875. 

Asthenic Disease and Flour. Boston Journal of Chemistry, April, 

1873. 

Whole Wheat Cleaned. Popular Science News, Boston, Janu- 
ary-February, 1888; S. Sc, London, June, 1888. 

Butter. Michigan Med. News, June 25th, 1881. 

Highly Important and Extensively Advertised Cereal Foods under 

the Microscope. Twenty-eight cuts. Am. Med. Weekly, January. 
7th, 1882, edition 260.000 ; Scientific American ; also newspapers. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY : PARTIAL 373 

The Relation of Medicine and Music. Circular of Information, 

U. S. Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C, 1886. 
The Relation of Medicine and Music. Read to Society of Sc, 

Letters, and Art, London, November, 1890. Published 1891. 

Gold Medal Prize Essay. 
Report en Flour and Decayed Teeth. Mass. State Board of Health, 

1875. 

Ephraim Cutter, M.D., and John A. Cutter, M.D., jointly. 

Fatty and Fibroid Degenerations. Journal American Medical 
Association, vol. xviii, p. 659. 

Feeding in the Wasting Diseases. Report to Committee on Dietet- 
ics of American Medical Association, 1890; Journal American 
Medical Association, July 20, 1890, etc. 

Diet in Tumor and Cancer. Medical Bulletin, August and Sep- 
tember, 1891, Philadelphia. 

Fatty Ills and Their Masquerades. Book, 1898. 

Serious Cases. Medical Bulletin, July, 1896. 

On Galvanism : Food Primer ; Food Causation of Cataract ; Dia- 
betes and Locomotor Ataxia. Joint lecture, Medicc-Chirurgical 
College. Medical Bulletin, May, 1900. 

John A. Cutter, M.D. 

Answer to Food versus Bacilli in Consumption. Virginia Medical 
Monthly, December, 1888. 

Enemata of Whites of Eggs. Journal American Medical Associa- 
tion, vol. xxv., p. 147. 

Food for Diabetics. Journal American Medical Association, vol. 
xxviii., p. 1041. 

Treatment of Diabetes. Journal American Medical Association, 
vol. xxix., p. 494. 

Tuberculosis and Vinegar. Journal American Medical Associa- 
tion, vol. xxx., p. 321. 

Editorials and original articles on hygiene and the management of 
chronic ills. Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette, 1897-98-99. 



INDEX 



A 
Achard, 354. 

Acute diseases, Food in, 341. 
Aegineta, Paulus, 187. 
Aged, The care of, 363. 
Air, 3. 

Albany Medical College, 1. 
Albumenoids, 338, 339, 340. 
Albuminuria, etc., 94, 103, 163, 

347, 364. 
Alcohol, 126, 300. 

and tuberculosis, 315. 

daily food, 307. 

plant. See Saccharomy- 

cetes. 
sole food, 318. 
Aldehydes, 125. 
Algae, 214. 
Almond, 337. 

American Book Company, 371. 
Medicine, 143. 
Pomological Society, 

263. 
troops, 63. 
Amyloid and protein groups, 

336. 
Anatomy of melancholy, 290. 
Andover Theological Seminary, 

54- 
Angina pectoris, 20, 352. 
Anguish, 292. 



Apoplexy, 363. 

Arctic and Antarctic, 63. 

Arterio-sclerosis, 331, 364, 365. 



B 



Bacilli, bacteria, infusoria. See 
Water, Wheat, Alcohol, 
Fermentation, Food 
in chronic disease. 
Baked beans, 201. 
Baker, W. R., 34- 
Baking powders, 134. 
Banana, 284. 
Barbecues, 64. 
Barley, 149. 
Beach, 337. 

Beacon Hill Reservoir, 37. 
Beans, baked, 201. 
Lima, 205. 
String, 209. 
Beef, 56. 

and uric acid, 70. 
broiled chopped, 80, 344. 
cooking, 78. 
extracts, 72. 

abnormal fibre, Morphol- 
ogy of, 72. 
steak dinners, 64. 
tongue, 84. 
Beets, 253. 



*A full index, direct and cross, would take up many pages; the text 
of each food herein corsidered opens with general and historical consider- 
ations which are followed by systematic sub-divisions, so that the reader 
may easily find the chemistry, physiology, morphology, disease relations, 
etc. Under fish, is a general consideration of the subiect and a specific 
consideration of scale and shell fish. 



375 



376 



INDEX 



Bergamots, 193. 
Ben-beri, 143. 
Bibliography, 371. 
Biliousness, 239, 241. 
Blindness, 163. 
Blood, 331. 

Action of alcohol on, 314. 

corpuscles, 210, 211. 
Bogberry, 337. 
Bond, Dr., 104. 
Boneset, Fluid extract, 365. 
Boston Board of Health, 76. 
brown bread, 152. 
University, 1. 
Water Board, 35. 
Bovril, 72, 284, 343- 
Bowels, Sore, 179. 
Bracomet, 279. 
Brain, 332. 

and alcohol, 319. 

exhaustion, 367. 

disturbances, 201, 204. 

rest, 368. 

See Head under various 
foods. 
Brand, 122. 
Bread, 133- 
Breakfast foods, 137. 
Bric-a-brac, 6. 
Bright's disease, 65, 90, 163, 197, 

33i, 355, 357- 
See Albuminuria. 
Broiled chopped beef, 80, 344. 
Brown bread, 152. 
Buchenet, 237. 
Burton, 177, 290. 

Butter, 13. ] 

Buttermilk, 15. | 



Cabbage, 259. 

Caesar's army, 130. 

Cakes, 135, 136. 

Calculi of kidneys, 22. 

Canals and air, 4, 5. 

Cancer, 83, 187, 360. 

Cane sugar, 125, 336. 

Cankers, 66. 

Capsicum, 279. 

Cardiation, 279. 

Care of the aged, The, 363. 

Carrot, 257. 

Carson, Kit, 66. 

Cascara sagrada, 366. 

Casein, 338, 339, 34L 

See Milk. 
Cassava, 159. ; 

Cataract, 163. 
Catarrhs, 180, 321, 332. 
Cattle, Stall fed, 14. 
Celery, 173. 
Cellulose, 336. 
Celsus, 104. 
Cereal grains, 337. 
Cerebellum, 320. 

Changes in food by cooking, 332. 
Charities, Department of, 358. 
Cheese, 13. 

Cheney, 117. •' 

Chocolate, 120. 
Cholera, 208. 

infantum, 16, 17, 343. 

morbus, 282. 
Cholesterine degeneration, 331. 
Chronic diarrhoea, 213. 

diseases, 344. 



INDEX 



377 



Cicero, 244, 259. 

Citron, 193. 

Coca erythroxylon, 366. 

Cocoa, 120. 

Coffee, 114. 

pots, 40. 
Cogan, Thomas, 57, 66, 85, 96, 

99, 104, 237, 240, 242, 250, 

252, 256, 257, 371. 
Cohen, Prof. J. Solis, M.D., 163. 
Colds, 332. 

Colic, 179, 246, 272, 329, 342. 
Columnella, Lucius J. M., 197, 

201, 244, 251. 
Colza, 337. 
Condiments, 226. 
Constipation, 68, 170, 179, 266. 
Conversion, Mutual, 310. 
Cooke, Prof. J. P., 53. 
Cooking, 78, 332. 
Corn, 152. 
Corned beef, 81. 

Corning, Dr. J. Leonard, 367,371. 
Coues, Dr., 144. 
Coughs, 220. 
Cramps, 329. 

See Colic. 
Cranberry. 269. 
Cress, 244. 
Cucumber, 272. 

pickles, 275. 
Curds of milk, 12. 
Cutter, Benjamin, A.M., M.D., 

Hi, 45- 
Cutter, Benjamin L., 40. 
Cutter, Calvin, A.M., M.D., 369. 
Cuzner, Dr. A. T., 159. 
Cystin, 94. 

See Rheumatism. 



D 



Dandelion, 240. 

Fluid extract, 365. 

Darlington, Dr. Thomas, 29, 7$. 

Darwin, Charles, 197. 

Dates, 161. 

David, King, 201. 

Degeneration. See Fatty, fibroid 
and nerve. 

Delirium tremens, 279. 

Dextrin, 336. 

Diarrhoea, 67, 204, 216, 217, 218, 
220, 246, 266, 273. 

Digestion, 298. 

Digitalis, 366. 

Dioscorides, 253, 255. 

Disagreeable habits, 295. 

Disease, Real prevention of, 358. 

Diseases. See Acute and chronic, 
and surgical affec- 
tions and special 
references in in- 
dex. 

Dispensatory, National, 366. 

Dreams, 179. 

Dried beef, 83. 

Drunkards, 278. 

Dunglison, Robley, 212. 

Dysentery, 155. 

Dyspnoea, 343. 



Ebriety, 328. 

Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, 258. 

Eggs, 93. 

Whites of, 343, 344, 365. 
Einheif, 147. 



378 



INDEX 



Einhoff, 149. 
Elephantiasis, 143, 163. 
Elixir Mariani, 367. 
Embolism, 368. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 169. 
Emetic, 341, 342. 
Enlarged heart, 353. 
Epilepsy, 170, 355. 
Epileptics, 205. 
Epilogue, 370. 
Ergot poisoning, 163. 
Erysipelas, 318. 
Esquimaux dogs, 48. 
Eye diseases, 91. 



Fats, 337- 

Fatty degeneration, 88, 90, ioo, 

122, 174, 311, 313, 331, 34i, 

368. 

ills, 170. 
Fehling's test, 333. 
Fermentation, 306, 329. 
Fermenting food, 342. 
Fernelius, 242. 
Fevers, 66. 
Fibrin, 338, 339- 
Fibroid degenerations, 170, 312, 

330, 331, 362, 363. 
Fibroids, 332, 360, 361. 
Fish, 104. 

in river water, 27. 
Flatulence, 252, 260. 
Flax, 337. 

Flour, Common, 135. 
Food and cooking, 332. 

Divisions of, 1, 2, 3. 

first taken, 3. 

in acute diseases, 341. 

in chronic diseases, 344. 

in surgical affections, 360. 



Foods, Breakfast, 137. 

Infants', 137. 

Spiritual and mental, 285. 

Vegetable kingdom, table 
analyses, 124. 
French Academy of Medicine, 

67. 
Frogs, 27. 
Fruit sugar, 337. 
Fungi, 6, 213. 



Galen, 86, 95, 187, 237, 238, 255, 

256, 257, 258, 260. 
Gall stones, 20, 350. 
Galvanism of fibroids, 362. 
Ganglionic nerve centers, 311. 
Gangrene, 149. 
Garlic, 223. 

Georgia State Med. Assoc, 360. 
Germ life and ice, 49. 
Gliadin, 339. 
Glucose group, 125. 
Gluten, 341. 
Gout, 20. 

Gramophones, 294. 
Grape, 263. 

fruit, 193. 

sugar, 336. 
Green pea, 197. 
Griffith and Henfrey, 371. 
Gum, 336, 341, 360. 



H 



Haig, 70, 71, 369. 

Halle, 20. 

Hamburg steak, 81. 

Hamlin, Cyrus, D.D., LL.D., 165. 

Hardtack, 136. 



INDEX 



379 



Harris, 250. 

Harvard Medical Laboratory, 71. 
Physiological Labora- 
tory, 369. 
University, i, iii, 33, 53. 
Hasselquist, Frederick, 231. 
Head, 332. 

See paragraphs under va- 
rious foods. 
Health Boards, 28, 359. 
Heart and circulation, 292. 

Coca for, 367. 

Enlarged, 352, 353. 

See Palpitation. 

Weak, 354. 
Hemorrhages, 279. 
Hemp, 337. 
Hickory, 337. 
Highlanders, 177, 178. 
Hindoos, 2. 
Hippocrates, 187. 
History of the American Revo- 
lution, 155. 
Hodge, Thomas, Co., 43. 
Hoffmann's anodyne, 184. 
Holden, Dr. Austin, 194. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 227, 

228, 229, 359- 
Hominy, 152. 
Horseradish, 226. 
Hot water, 50, 342, 345, 365. 
How crops grow, 124, 336. 
Humidity, 7, 8. 
Hydrogen dioxide, 15. 



Ice, 48. 
Inebriety, 328. 
Infants' foods, 137. 
Insane asylums, 108. 



Insanity, 311, 319. 
Insomnia, 239. 
Intermittent fever, 278. 
Intestinal parasites, 55. 
Intestines, 323, 324, 330, 331, 362, 

363. 
Inulin, 346. 
Iowa College, 1. 
Irish moss, 212. 
Iron, Pyrophosphate of, 366. 



Jersey lightning, 172. 

Johnson, S. W., 124, 336, 371. 

Jordan, Dr., 76. 

Journal de Pharmacie, 270. 

Judeus, Isaac, 66. 

Juvenal, 222. 



K 



Keller, Helen, 90. 
Kidneys, 370. 

Calculi of, 22. 
See Bright's disease, 
Fatty and Fibroid 
degenerations and 
Albuminuria. 
Koppe, Dr., 21. 
Kosher beef, 75. 



Lactucarium, 237. 

Lactucin, 237. 

Lamb, 86. 

Lead pipes for hydrant waters, 

39- 
Leeks, 223. 
Lehmann, 339. 



38o 



INDEX 



Leibrich, 338. 

Lemon, 193. 

Leprie, 66. 

Leprosy, 105, 143, 146. 

Lettuce, 237. 

Liebig, 340. 

Life, 340. 

Lightfoot, Dr. Geo. R, 350. 

Liguin, 336. 

Lima bean, 205. 

Limes, 193, 196. 

Limprecht, 336. 

Linnaeus, 242, 244. 

Liver, 330, 331, 364, 365, 370. 

Liverpool Sponge Museum, 35. 

Locke, John, 303. 

Locomotor ataxia, 181, 204, 246, 

310, 319, 347, 348, 349- 
Longfellow, 300. 
Lorenzo, Dr. Frank A., 223. 
Lucian, 222. 
Ludwig, 238. 
Lumes, 193. 
Lungs, 370. 

See Tuberculosis. 



M 



McCrudden, Francis H., 369. 
Malaria, 37. 
Malignant tissue, 330. 
Mariani, Angelo, 367. 
Mathias, 255. 
Mayn, John, 177. 
Medical Congress, Ninth Inter- 
national, 360. 
Tenth International, 48, 

67. 
Medicine, Future of, 358. 
Melancholia, 295. 



Melon, Musk, 251. 
Water, 249. 
Memory, 292, 297. 
Mental kingdom foods, 285. 
Mercury bin-iodide, 347. 
Mesotan, 347. 
Milk, 9, 58. 

and cholera infantum, 16. 

and grown-ups, 16. 

and tuberculosis, 14. 

constituents, 9, 11. 

Conventional lack of, for 
babes, 10. * 

Curds of, 12. 

Digestion of, 12. 

ethics, 13. 

Good and fresh, 9. 

in tea and coffee, 16. 

quantity versus quality, 15. 

Skim, 14. 

sterilization, 15. 
Molasses, 128. 
Mongery, Dr., 248. 
Morphology, Abnormal beef fi- 
ber, 72. 
of good cooking, 

334. 
See references un- 
der Foods. 
Mortimer, Dr. W. Golden, 366, 

3$7, 368, 371. 
Mountaineering, 297. 
Mucidin, 339. 
Mushes, 134. 
Mushrooms, 5. 
Musics, 285. 
Musk melon, 251. 
Must, 268. 
Mustard, 231. 
Mutton, 86. 



INDEX 



38l 



N 



Nansen, 63. 
Napoleon, 293, 297. 
Needham Dam, 34. 
Nerve center disturbances, 204. 
degenerations, 330, 350, 

35i, 363, 365- 

diseases, 149. 

tissues, 320. 
Nervous system, 330. 
Neuralgia, 279. 
New Century Primer of Hygiene, 

147. 
New Jersey State Medical So- 
ciety, 167. 
New York Boys' Asylum, 67. 

Deaf and Dumb In- 
stitute, 87. 
Croton Dam, 36. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 303. 
Noises, 295. 
Norton, Prof. J. P., 179. 

Rear - Admiral Charles 
Stuart, 43. 
Nuclein, 250. 
Nunn, Dr. R. J., 64, 360. 
Nursing, Substitution for, 15. 

O 
Oat, 177. 

Obesity, 88, 100, 170, 353, 354. 

Oils, 337, 34i. 

Okra, 244. 

Old age, 296. 

Oleomargarine, 13. 

Onions, 219. 

Orange, 193, 196. 

Ovid, 104. 

Oxalate of lime, 70. 

Ox-tail, 84. 



Palpitation of heart, 179, 204, 

206, 296. 
Panics, 292, 297. 
Paracelsus, 300. 
Paresis, 319. 
Parr, 174, 240, 242, 252, 253, 256, 

260, 281. 
Parsley, 242. 
Parsnip, 255. 
Patella, Fractured, 342. 
Pay en, 117. 
Peach, 181. 
Peanut, 337. 
Pearson, 187. 
Pelletier, 256, 277. 
Pepper, Black, 276. 

Cayenne, 279. 
Red, 279. 
Peru : History of Coca, 366. 
Peyer, 117. 

Pharyngitis sicca, 332. 
Phillips Academy, 54. 
Phonographs, 294. 
Phosphorized fats, 337. 
Phyto-chemistry, 340. 
Pickles, 275. 
Pies, 136. 
Pineapple, 284. 
Pleurisy, 357. 
Pliny, 149, 181, 186, 193, 201, 229, 

237, 242, 251, 253, 255, 257, 

279, 281. 
Plum, 189. 
Pneumonia, 7, 343. 
Pneumonitis, Typhoid, 107. 
Poet Martial, 237. 
Poisoning by peas, 198. 
Polarized light, 333. 
Polyclinic, London, 105. 



382 



INDEX 



Pork, 95. 

Porterhouse steak, 79. 

Post, New York Evening, 358. 

Potassium iodide, 347. 

Potato, 137. 

Prescription, Oldest, 167. 

Preventive medicine, 358, 360. 

Prohibitory laws, 329. 

Prostate gland, 332. 

Protagon, 338. 

Protein group, 336, 338, 339. 

Prousb, 149. 

Prune, 189. 

Prussic acid, 159, 182. 

Ptomaine poisoning, 103. 

Pumpernickel bread, 148. 



Quarriane, 66. 



Q 



R 



Radish, 229. 

Raspberry, 281. 

Reindeers, 48. 

Reinsch, Prof. Paulus F., 32, 33, 

35, 37, 38, 161, 213. 
Religionists and food, 207. 
Remsen, Prof., 35. 
Reptiles in river water, 27. 
Rheumatism, 20, 70, 72, 95, 108, 

194, 195, 342, 347, 348, 356, 

363, 364. 
Rhubarb, 283. 
Rice, 142. 

Richardson, A. D., 96. 
Roast beef, 81. 
Robinson, Dr. Beverley, 268. 
Rumford, Count, 86. 
Rye, 147. 



Saccharomycetes cerevisiae, 300. 
Saccharose, 336. 

group, 125. 
Sachs, 341. 
Sago, 157. 
Sake, 146. 
Salicin, 366. 
Salisbury, Jas. H., M.D., LL.D., 

371. 
Salt, 53. 

Salts, how formed in blood, 71. 

Sancyoski, Baron, 143. 

Sausages, 102. 

Scabies, 66. 

Scarlet fever, 102, 123. 

Sciatica, 70. 

Scorbutic, anti, 229, 261. 

Scrofula, 355. 

Scurvy, 195, 220, 239, 271. 

Sei-I-Kwai Journal, 143. 

Selkirk, Alexander, 306. 

Seo Sal, 66. 

Shaddock, Capt., 193. 

Shaddocks, 193. 

Smithsonian Institute, 33. 

Soda, Sulphate of, C. P., 366. 

Sourkrout, 260, 261. 

Spinach, 216. 

Spinal axis, 330. 

Spiritual and mental foods, 285. 

Spitting cotton, 321. 

Spleen, 370. 

Sponge Museum, Liverpool, 35. 

Squash, 245, 247. 

Standard Dictionary, 371. 

Stanley, 63. 

Starch, 336, 341. 

State Exp. Stations, 371. 

Steam and air, 8. 



INDEX 



383 



Stellurine, 70. 

Stern & Co., 75. 

Sterne, 320. 

Stomach, Alcoholic relations of, 

3". 

See Fermentation. 
Stone of bladder, 154. 
Strawberry, 281. 
Strictured intestines, 330, 362, 

363. 
String beans, 209. 
Strychnine, 366. 
Sugar, Brown, 128. 

cane, 125. 

Common white, 128. 

in conversion, 336. 

Kinds, 125. 
Suicide, 295, 296. 
Summer squash, 247. 
Sunflower, 337. 

Surgical affections, Food in, 360. 
Swine plague, 101. 

pox, 102. 
Sympathetic nerves, 296. 



Tabasco sauce, 380. 

Tahoe, Lake, 31. 

Tanner, Dr., 53. 

Tapeworm, 58, 67, 102, no, 113, 

248. 
Tapioca, 159. 
Tappuah, 193. 
Tea, 118. 

Thallophytes, 213. 
The Mariani, 367. 
Thomas, Dr. T. Gaillard, 361. 
Toper's nose, 313, 327. 
Topler, 337. 



Treating, 327. 
Tripe, 83. 

Triple phosphates, 70. 
Trout in river water, 27. 
Tubercular lesion (?), 349. 
Tuberculosis, 14, 15, 67, 96, 97, 
101, 105, 315, 330, 346, 352, 

357- 
Turnip, 251. 
Typhoid conditions, 318. 

fever, 29, 54, 108, 296. 

and water, 28, 29, 30. 

pneumonitis, 107. 
Typho-malaria, 342. 
Typhus fever, 138, 149. 



U 



Undertakers, National Conven- 
tion, 55. 
Undigested beans, 202. 
U. S. Dept. Agric, 371. 
University of Pennsylvania, i, iii. 
Uric acid, 71, 369. 

and beef, 70. 

in blood, 71. 
Urticaria, 101, 282. 
Uterine fibroids. See Fibroid. 



V 



Veal, 85. 

Vegetarians, 340. 

Venesection, 343. 

Vin Mariani, 367, 368. 

Vinegar, 40, 41, 323, 328. 

Mother of, 308. 
Virgil, 149, 174, 177, 189, 281. 
Vogel, 179. 
Von Wolff, Prof. E., 124. 



3^4 



INDEX 



W 

Water, 18. 

a chemical substance, 52. 
Animal and vegetable 

life in, 32. 
Artesian, 25. 
Boiling, 52. 
Chemically pure, 18. 
Cochituate, 32, 33. 
Cold, 44. 
Color of, 31. 
Combinations of, not fit 

to drink, 18. 
Croton, 32. 

Distilled, 18, 19, 20, 21. 
Drink, fit in deserts, 24. 
Formless, pure, 18. 
Horn Pond, litigation, 36. 
Hot, 50. 
Hydrant, 38. 
Ice, 45, 47. 

Kinds, fit to drink, 18. 
Long Pond, 32. 
Lukewarm, 50. 



Water Melon, 249. 

Mystic, 32. 

Pond or lake, 21, 31. 

Pool, ditch and marsh, 
23, 24. 

Purifying process, 41. 

Ship, 40. 

Sky blue, 31. 

Snow, 49. 

Spring, 25, 26. 

River, 27, 28, 29, 30. 

Well, 21, 22, 23. 

Worms in, 43. 
Watson, Prof. Sereno, 33. 
Wheat, 129. 
Wine, 269. 

Wood, Prof. E. A., 10. 
Wood, Dr. G. B., 152. 
Wood and Bache, 122, 181, 258, 

277, 281. 
Worcestershire sauce, Hol- 

brook's, 278. 
Workensky, 122. 
Worms, 27, 43. 
Worrall, Dr., 161, 163, 164. 



•HY 6 1907 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 






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